Category: Art

Bandra’s street art: The writing on the wall

Posted on by sudhagee

Bandra has suddenly become the place to go to for me. Thanks to a combination of work and a friend moving to this area, I have made more trips to Bandra in the last month than in all the 21 years I have lived in Mumbai ! The visits to Bandra have also been more relaxed and I’ve had a great time walking and discovering interesting facets of this beautiful and charming suburb.

Take Bandra’s graffiti or street art for instance. I’ve been aware of them, read about them in newspapers, seen a few in passing, but never really stopped to have a look at them. So, a couple of weeks back, when I came across a series of them painted on the compound wall of St. Peter’s Church on Hill Road, I stopped. I looked. I read. I photographed. And now I’m sharing the best of them with you.

Laadli Girl Child Campaign, Bandra, Street Art, Hill Road, MumbaiAll the images I saw were on the theme of falling sex ratio and gender selection in India and part of a campaign initiated by Population First on the girl child called “Laadli”. According to information given on the campaign’s website, this is “a means of creating mass awareness and raising public conscience against the reprehensible practice of sex selection.” One might wonder, why such a campaign is being run in posh Bandra, in Mumbai even. Till you read what the campaign website has this to say:

The commercial capital of the country – Mumbai, has a sex ratio of 898.

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The SoBo art trail: Exploring Mumbai’s art district

Posted on by sudhagee

It never ceases to amaze me how much I unconsciously internalise popular perceptions without even realising it. Take for instance, Mumbai’s art scene.

Till about 3 weeks back, if somebody had asked me about Mumbai’s art scene, I would have said how it was not very vibrant, unlike Delhi. Or Bangalore. Or Chennai. I might have cited the absence of good art galleries, beyond the couple of famous ones that I knew. I  would have also said something about the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival, and then probably ended by mumbling something about not knowing much about my city’s artscape.

All I can say of the above para is that only the last line is correct — I really don’t know anything about my city’s art scene. As for the rest, I was only repeating the general impression about Mumbai’s art scene based on what I read and discussions with like-minded people.

I realised how misplaced my knowledge was when I received an invitation from Pia of Good Homes India to participate in a blogger art trail (essentially a guided tour of 5 of South Bombay’s prominent art galleries) as part of their Public Art Week initiative. The invite was intriguing enough, but what caught my attention were these lines:

The galleries we are looking at covering are Gallery7, Sakshi art gallery, Gallery Maskara, 1/29 Studio Gallery and Art Musings. The mix is interesting and so is the art.

With the exception of Sakshi Gallery (which I had never been to), I hadn’t even heard of the other art galleries. And to think all these galleries were concentrated in South Bombay (SoBo), also known as the city’s art district. This I had to see for myself !

I had no hesitation in accepting the invitation even though it was at such short notice necessitating taking half-a-day off from work. So, on November 28th, a mixed group of 10 odd design, food, art and travel bloggers gathered at The Pantry for high tea before setting out on the art trail.

Art Trail, Gallery Maskara, Mumbai

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Discovering Outsider Art

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Outsider Art, Museum Dr. Guislain
“Dying Papa”, by Tim Brown. Oil on Wood

The man lies rigid on a bed. Or is it a bench? There is no mattress on the bed/bench, but there’s a pillow under his head and another, flatter and smaller one, under his feet. The sheet covering him is too small and his feet stick out. The lights above the bed/bench cast sickly grey shadows on the walls, that appear to hover over the man. Are the shadows angels of death, I wonder?

I am drawn to this compelling artwork titled “Dying Papa” by Tim Brown, one of the many artworks on display at the exhibition on “Breaking the Chains of Stigma“, at the Institute for Contemporary Indian Art, Mumbai. This first-of-its-kind exhibition in India, which presents a global overview of mental health and a selection of “Outsider Art“, has been conceptualised by the Museum Dr. Guislain of Ghent in Belgium (and brought to India in collaboration with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences and Janssen Pharmaceuticals).

The information given along with the above artwork says that Brown (b.1923) is an African-American who grew up poor in the religious, rural and segregated South of the United States and worked in menial jobs. Brown started painting when he realised that he had no visuals from his childhood to share with his children. An untrained artist, Brown painted from his childhood memories on rough wooden boards or planks. After Brown’s wife died and his children left home, he withdrew from society at large and preferred to communicate with the outside world only through his paintings.

As I read this information, I realise that I have just been introduced an unknown and new genre of art (for me, that is) — “Outsider Art” — and one that sounds exciting ! But what  exactly is this Outsider Art? A walk through the exhibition acquaints me with this genre and how it has developed over the years.

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‘Meeting’ MF Husain in London

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Christmas Eve 2008. London. At around 7.30 pm that evening, you could have found me at Hyde Park with two friends, Bharath and Krithika. Three Indians with varying degrees of homesickness. Hyde Park was more crowded than usual that day—apart from the casual visitors and walkers and joggers, it was full of revelers at the Christmas Fair being held at the Park. We, too, joined the revelers, but after some time found it unbearably noisy and decided to leave.

We took a path that appeared to have fewer people and after some time found ourselves in the Kensington Gardens. As we were walking along and chatting about that and this, I suddenly noticed a building in the distance all lit up and covered by what appeared to be extremely colourful graffiti—at least from where we were standing.

Curious, we decided to investigate. As we walked closer, we discovered that it was not colourful graffiti, but paintings that were hung on the exterior walls of the building. They were glowing in the dark and against the silhouette of the building, it was a sight to behold.

Photograph: Sylvain Deleu. Photo Courtesy: http://www.serpentinegallery.org

The exterior walls of the Serpentine Gallery showcase MF Husain’s works

And what an architectural frame! They could not have described it more aptly. It was amazing to see these works of art displayed the way they were, outside the confines of a sterile, gallery interior. Once I got over the unexpected shock of seeing Husain’s works displayed as such, I was able to just stand back and enjoy them. Even though it was quite cold that evening, just looking at the pictures warmed me up.

Reds, yellows, oranges and blues. All my favourite colours in one frame

Allowing Husain’s vibrant and colourful paintings to surround me with their warmth, I felt some of my homesickness dissipate, and suddenly cold, grey, sunless London was bearable. I sent a heartfelt, but silent thank you to MF Husain for making me feel happier than I had felt in days.

Yesterday, when I read of MF Husain’s death, I immediately remembered that evening when he, or rather his paintings, helped me tide over homesickness. For someone who was hounded in the country of his birth, forced to give up his citizenship, publicly declared his homesickness and yearn to come back to India—I wonder what comforted him and kept him going.

R.I.P. Maqbool Fida Husain.