Spiritually aesthetic syncretism

Art reviews

Against the classic spirit of photography that dominates Tasveer’s exhibitions, ‘Inner Space’ by Italian artist Maimouna Guerresi (January 5 to 25) belonged to the rarer in its kind, where the final camera image is achieved by the contemporary visual artist as one of the diverse formal means and methods that influence one another on the verge of a merger while contributing to a layered effect.

In fact, the very syncretistic complexity of the so-revealed artistic process reflects and enhances the multicultural strata in Guerresi’s intimate vision of the universal and unifying spiritual aspiration of people among different religions. Whether one looks for spiritual ideals in religion or life, one becomes instantly drawn to her imagination.

The certain overstress on striking formal qualities of the many Indian motifs initially introduces the sense of exuberance and exoticism limited to the surface, and the viewer may need some verbal guidance to locate all the intended evocation.

Equipped with that, one is indeed able to empathise with the aim of the many references, accepting that the sheer element of staged drama is used by the artist consciously in tune with its place in religious representation and ritual, both conventional and heretic, on the one hand, and, on the other, with the expectations of the largely youthful globalising reality to some of whose ethos she responds. And thus, the prints seem to embrace the past and the present over an imagery, whose Islamic foundation reaches out for kinship and assimilates meeting points with Sikhism, Hinduism and, perhaps less evidently, with Christianity.

The drama, symbolic and expressive of a lofty corporeal transformation, is shaped much like performance photography that has absorbed painting, sculpture, architecture and a tinge of installation with their tactile spaces as well as voids. While real people in the shots base the ethos in the actual, their simultaneous depersonalisation, partial abstraction and simultaneous metamorphosis turn them into suggestions of unworldly sublimation and metaphors.

The most important are the several figures draped in long gowns, stoles and veils which elevate and elongate them quite like sacred statues of some new, elusive iconography.

The flourish of the textiles patterns or the palpable painted wall textures hold the real, whereas an intangible, precious dimension can be intuited in the merely outlined symbolic swords that become musical instruments, the purity of the white clothes and the black hollowness of the backgrounds and of the arches opening or entering the bodies that sometimes appear to levitate. May be the finest, the Madonna-like wrapped figures are darker and muted, enlivened as well as crossed out by painted solar lines, as if reconciling life with death. If these draped posing figures act largely in the manner of sculptures, sometimes tall minaret-sculptures are worn on their heads to stand for towering aspiration.

Both the fact that some faces are covered and that the meaning of some images does not entirely lend itself to explanation has to do with the notion of essential mystery behind existence and behind its transcendence.

Such connotation pervades the spectacular, traditional but reinterpreted mudra pictures, the gestures having been emphasised and yet denied by the brushed on luminous contours. Transposed Indian quotations fill also the images where gesticulating palms add to patterns of cosmic embroidery and ones where red spinning circles with ethnic dancers turn into trajectories of planetary dynamism that exudes spiritual longing.

Theoretical performance

‘Seeing Red,’ the art event of Bernard Akoi-Jackson from Ghana, was conceived for its relevance in India, and rather ambitiously planned in the way of a participatory performance/lecture at 1 Shanthi Road Studio/Gallery (January 5).

As revealed by the artist, it meant to base on the experiences around the phenomenon of colonially instilled bureaucracy common to both countries and highlight human frustration and anger at its rituals and hindrances, holding old structures along with their modernised versions, while attempts were made to channel the same towards gestures of reflection, subversion and reassertion. As much as one found the premise topical and well-structured, its actual manifestation came through only like a statement or mere seed for evocative fleshing out.

All the necessary elements being included, the whole lacked convincing power and an expressive building of mood that could prepare and stimulate others to join in. Theoretical potentiality persisted from the initial performative walk of Jackson dressed as an African chief, quite spectacular from close on, but muted without sufficient light, to his regular talk and invitation to the audience to write criticism of government bodies in red implements.