The new bronze sculptures of Karl Antao, the well-known mid-generation artist from Ahmedabad, which are displayed at Sumukha (September 21 to October 10), may look surprising for someone used to his often very large figures of wood. After a while yet, they reveal not only an intrinsic connection but crystallisation and consequence of the earlier oeuvre. The present use of metal in relatively smaller, still life-size, images comes from the idea of confronting the human mind with the body which takes on the shape of a cooking vessel. The artist dwells on the confounding dichotomy between the cultivated intellect imprinted by societal and political routines, selfishness or prejudice and the spontaneous warmth of simple people which understands and accepts much more, and which manifest itself naturally in the feelings of women who give of themselves in the food they prepare. Initially, the viewer takes in the images with tactile, emotive immediacy.
One can sense a corporeal focus and a circumstance of complex, conflicting notions that find resolution in the inner peace evident in the meditative faces. Nonetheless, one becomes unsure as to the meaning of the abundant metaphoric elements. As such this uncertainty has its own role echoing the state Karl wishes to evoke in the sculptures, although detailed explanation becomes necessary.
There are a number of majestic busts of a rather classic kind imbued with an expressively simplified, essentialist realism. Here the sculptor literally from the hair of the figures draws circling trajectories of visualised qualities of the mind and its actions. Its inherent illusiveness, intolerance and violence and juxtaposed with the accommodating softness of the bodies that seem full of good emotions and so offer support.
The loving gravity of these images is contrasted as well as further fleshed out in the busts where the body is replaced by a vessel. With tender playfulness and intimately, the artist focuses here on a similar range of concepts towards a more optimistic credo anchored in instinctive, untaught goodness of people.
The works have a rare technical excellence that allows Karl to finely merge symbolic forms with sensitive texturing and evocativeness, while both the contradictions and their overcoming can be intuited. Especially admirable is his way with patina colours that, too, oscillate between metaphor and unassuming expressiveness. The more compact of the imposing busts among the comparatively realistic ones are impressive with the rounded rhythms they conjure, whereas a few may have acquired traces of mannerism.
The best, like in the smaller pieces, are those which, instead of juxtaposing, seamlessly merge the metaphoric and imaginative content with the rough-gentle tactility of the real face and body.
That the “Unseen truths” sculptures were conceived in the context of Gujarat’s recent communalism becomes clear as one meets the two sculptural installations.
The universal address of the funeral bier for the idealism of different religious becomes completed by the other work. That makes the spectator a participant compelled to question his or her personal integrity to grasp its bearing on the wider political, economic and social practice.
Conventional diversity
The nine mid-generation painters of the Varnika Karnataka group, who showed at the CKP (September 21 to 27), believe that they represent a variety of contemporary concerns and idioms. What one found in reality, however, was an often consummately rendered diversity but of rather old-fashioned and decorative or formalistic kinds. The most authentic in its feminine sensitivity and comparative strength is the work of Rekha Rani that between translucent hues and a graphic linearity probes emotionality through its corporeal embedding. The partial realistic anchor present in it, under the brush of P.S. Kademani turned literal and pleasant surface-oriented in his rustic scenes.
Kishor Kumar sweetens it further and blends with half-way contemporary motifs and patterned abstraction while praising Buddhist values. A loud mannerist twist is given to it by Vijay Nagvekar’s Ganesha images and a simplistically symbolic, textured design-like by B.S. Desai’s yogic imagery. Unoriginal abstraction with a tendency to design dominates the canvases of C.S. Krishna Setty, Dilip Kumar Kale, M.C. Chetti and Vittal Raddi Chulaki, whether they allude to landscape perspectives and rhythms or to human relationships.
Hesitant efforts
Another group exhibition at the CLP (September 21 to 27), though by fresh art school alumni, displayed more genuineness, even if without yet a real achievement. “We seven – 2007” had at least one case of ambitious contemporary effort, appreciated despite its formal dependency and unclear content – R. Jagadisha’s immense, hollow body-shirts of stones, leaves and punched metal. S. Rajesh, K. Mukund and S. N. Anuradha proved engagement in abstracting dizzy planar city structures, in a delicately precise realistic rendering of plants and in a dynamic turmoil of colours with reference to reality.
John Thomas, P.B. Sumathi and K. Suresh are more concerned with mere formal effects oscillating from a n illustrative literalness to J.M.S. Mani-recalling scenery abstractions and pleasant collaging on ready and painted material.
Deja vu
The photographic display by the senior artist Kempanna (CKP, September 19 to 21) ostensibly exude his devotion to the scenic vignettes, realities, human characters and charms of his environ in rural Bangalore.
Without denying his intentions one, nevertheless, found the shots fairly cultured and technically competent but heavily dependent on certain locally well-entrenched conventions. For instance, he repeats over and over again the familiar imagery of cattle against a somewhat sentimental misty sunset illumination. Monotonously and artificially too, he uses lighting from behind to create linear frames and diffused auras around the portrayed people which imposes on them an unnecessary prettiness. His wild-life images tend to be stiff and static even when capturing motion.
