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‘Deconstructed Realms’: A new exhibition explores India's tryst with cubism
Summary
A new exhibition throws light on the distinctive style Indian artists brought to cubism in the 20th century
In J. Sultan Ali’s Milkmaid, you can see a vibrant folk idiom come together with the cubist style. A new exhibition at DAG, Deconstructed Realms: India’s Tryst with Cubism, features over a hundred such works by 40 artists, including Gaganendranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose, George Keyt and Biren De who innovated with this largely Western construct in an Indian context in the 20th century. It’s interesting to see how the art movement made its way from Europe to India, planting its roots first in Bengal, with Gaganendranath Tagore being at the forefront of this journey.
According to Ashish Anand, CEO and managing director, DAG, it all started when artists from Bengal experienced the Bauhaus exhibition in Kolkata in 1922, organised by art historian Stella Kramrisch. Works by Western artists were shown alongside those of a few Indians. “That became a trigger for Gaganendranath Tagore to first explore cubism in his work. He inserted it within the complex watercolour wash style, which was itself influenced by Japanese wash paintings. This gave it a distinctive language in Bengal," he elaborates. Abanindranath Tagore too followed in Gaganendranath’s footsteps in the exploration of cubism and soon after, others such as Prosanto Roy and Asit Kumar Haldar adapted it within their practice.
Over time, it came to be accepted across the country’s growing thrust towards a modernist quest in art. Deconstructed Realms has four segments—the cross cultural exchange that informed the cubist awakening in India, fragmented forms and kaleidoscopic compositions as seen from the 1920s onwards, practices in the post-independence era, and finally, abstracted realities. It’s interesting to see departures in practice by Chittaprosad, who looked at landscapes and figures through geometric planes and vibrant hues.
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Some artists ventured beyond painting to include materials such as metal, wood, lacquer and cement. Significant in this regard are sculptures by Dhanraj Bhagat and Ramkinkar Baij. Then there are abstracts by G.R. Santosh, Amit Ambalal and V. Viswanadhan, which align with the Western concept of “analytical cubism" (in which an image is broken into fragments and multiple viewpoints), and George Keyt’s paintings that borrow from myths and legends.
According to Anand, for most part, “Indian cubism" sets itself apart with its lyrical, flowing lines as opposed to being jagged and sharp as seen in the West. It addresses issues of Indian aesthetics within the trope of modernism. “From A.A. Raiba’s surrealistic twists to Avinash Chandra’s patterned landscapes, there’s much here to surprise us by way of art that developed through a process of addition and elimination, something which has been a characteristic trait of Indian modernism," he adds.
DAG is simultaneously hosting Banaras: Imagined Landscape, which looks at how the ancient city has been visualised by travelling artists and photographers as well as by Indian painters and sculptors. The works on display interpret Banaras (now Varanasi) as a physical and spiritual realm. Curator Gayatri Sinha says the idea was to “...show the way in which Banaras has been addressed by colonial artists, bazaar art, and the modern Indian artist." The show also features texts by scholars who have addressed the interpretation of the city as well as the newer accretions to its ghats. “So in a sense, literature and poetry, architecture and belief systems, iconography and ritual all inform the exhibition," adds Sinha.
On view at DAG, Delhi, from 8 February to 5 April.
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