pundole and guild april 2009
These objects are guaranteed to work. In a future world, new life forms evolve assembled out of the debris of civilization. These fragments are assembled together to make war machines that create a spectacle out of comic juxtapositions and movements; a computing machine bleeds its wires all over the floor as it generates answers; a city is made out of what used to be parts of its most base infrastructure and a garden is created that is both absurd and beautiful. Tiny fragments enlarge to become part of a larger whole through a shift of scale and vice versa. We recognize the pieces that make these machines only for a moment before the stability of signifier disappears into the assemblage.How long will these machines last or how long should they? Once their life is over do these also disappear into what remains of our history- waiting for another purpose, another meaning- an afterlife?
Edge of Nations (at Pundole)A miniature tank assembled out of a car jack, cycle wheels, etc rumbles across the floor. You can control its movement up to a point until a parallel set of controls begins to take over.
The Computing Machine (at Pundole)This machine can answer all the questions of the universe- except that all answers are randomly generated through a circuitry of movements and noises. The only answers possible are ‘yes’, ‘no’ and ‘cancel’.
The Garden (at Pundole)This is a garden made from the fragments of our everyday lives. In it is a longing for elsewhere. The other place is desire.
Infrared cannot be seen by naked eye (at The Guild)We walk into this city and join a lost car as it tries to navigate a maze like city of high rises and surveillance. A roving eye, a helicopter, a clock, a light house watches over us.
Light Tank (at The Guild)As a turntable makes its perpetual turns a tank spews out light in spectacular patterns that fill the room.
Rohan Shivkumar
installation view at Pundole
At Guild
Infrared Cannot Be Seen By Naked Eyes :It is the same work that I put up at Anant, Delhi. The installation changed a lot. Not only the space was different but too because many architect friends worked to put it up. Rohan Shivkumar, Rupali Gupte, Sonal Sundarajan (my colleagues) students from our college, Jinal Shah, Aparna Parekh, Maitri shah, Kunal Bhatia, Richa Mehta, Amya Gurkar and Ranjit Kandalgaonkar, artist. The show would not have happened without their help. This one was completely Rohan, Sonal, Jinal and Rupali’s display.
Light Tank: Ranjit sat and opened up around one hundred connections and soldered them. This was displayed once before at "Re-visioning Materiality", 19th December 2007 Gallery Espace, New Delhi.
Photographs: Prakash Rao
Girish Shahane wrote about the show at
http://girishshahane.blogspot.com/2009/04/kausik-and-kiran.html
Random Answering Machine
At Pundole
One set of Rotating switches move another set of rotating switches, connected to three blubs that lit up three words, Yes, No and Cancel. Only one blub is on at one time. The answers are a chance occurrence. During the show answers were mostly negative
Photographs: Prakash Rao
The garden
At Pundole
The title garden came from Sonal’s idea of arranged, controlled and demarcated space, where fantasy can take shape and also from Hieronymus Bosch’s 'The Garden of Earthly Delights'. Lot of the imageries came from there. I was looking at photograph of Derek Jarman’s set for film 'The Garden' too. Influence of both is evident in the work. Junk from everyday formed the assemblage. It was difficult job to handle so many varied objects next to each other. Electric motors came in as it needed to break the stillness. It created a lot of noise too.
Photographs: Prakash Rao
9th Opening
9th April 2009 exhibition opened at Pundole and Guild in Mumbai. Having a solo in Mumbai after 2000.
Photographs: Mohua Ray
“Guaranteed to work throughout its useful life”
Parts and pieces come together to form multiple wholes that acquire new meanings in artist Kausik Mukhopadhyay’s recent works
By Kunal Bhatia
At Pundole Art Gallery a tank assembled out of a car jack, cycle wheels and gears greets visitors while traversing the floor space defined by a brightly lit-up ‘line of control’. Visitors can remote-control its movement but only until a point, after which its own circuit takes over. It then becomes disobedient and navigates its own way within the borders of the imagined nation. Right besides it, a variety of objects sit within close proximity to each other. While some are present in their complete form, fragments of others evoke thoughts about everyday objects and their significance. Some objects turn, twist and twirl while others symbolise implied movement. From toy train tracks to a cast of a human leg, the collection suggests desire, domesticity and control. The final exhibit, a computing machine, perhaps tries to answer some of the questions provoked by the objects in the garden. However, as artist Kausik Mukhopadhyay explains, it does so on its own accord. A system of circuitry triggered by movements and back-grounded by motorized noise sets of one of the three light bulbs. “But, all questions of the universe are answered by one of three precise, no-nonsense words – yes, no or cancel,” he adds.
Abhishek's mails
Abhishek Hazra has sent me two mails. The mails are themselves exciting and more so because we hardly ever write about other’s work. Thanks Abhishek.
congratulations syar.
tomar blog onek din dekha hoini - ekhon giye to ekta kajer ek jholok dekhei durdanto laglo:
"public sculpture for ants"!
Brilliant!!!
are ei kajta niye to ekta puro uponyash lekha jabe - aha - bheri inetresting.
theoretically very rich and poses some interesting philosphical conundrums:
01. can ants have an 'aesthetic' experience?
02. if they do, how can we know about it?
03. by making a 'public' sculpture to the scale of its intnded viwer it makes a political comment abt human public sculpture
04. also what is interesting, in the sense of suspended motion, that is implicit in these 'sculptures' - potentially they could be carried off the gallery floors by an army of ants. what would such a move say about artwork and viwership?
thank you for such an interesting work! this is precisely in the best traditions of conceptual art - where the formal properties of the work itself is minimal and in a way even banal, but is the discursive and theoretical framing of the work that makes it stimulating.
jiyo....
Abhishek
and forgot this one:
05. and what would a work like this say about "inter species" communication (which incidentally a hot topic in arts+science). can we make art works for a fruit fly?
06. and the how would a fruit fly make an art work for us, or for a nematode worm?
07. in this context, would it be relevant to explore the gift giving aspects of art? are the 'fruits' of genetic research, the fruit fly's unintended gifts to humanity?
08. although question 07 is guilty of being anthropocentric. this is relevant becuase anthropocentrism is something that the artwork itself tries to move away from (although in an ironic register)
to be continued
cheers
abhishek
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