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

Home Warming

Metal stand, vinyl cover, electric bulbs, plastic flower vase and dimmers.
Variable

There are 12 bulbs in the vase and connected to dimmers.

The brightness of the bulbs can be regulated individually.

At the Studio: Garden

I am making a garden. Large amount of bottles, pipes, pots and pans, small pieces of coloured plastic, broken locks, eclectic irons that don’t work, electric fan that works, empty printer cartridge, balls, toys, parts of electronic circuit, broken pieces of wood, metal, plastic, T joins, elbows and U bents, scissors, knives, electric lights, electric motors, coils, springs, baking trays, idli maker, mixi top, iron ghamela, gears, ball bearings, broken specs, pieces of glass, all forming the garden.

public sculpture for ants

vadehra art gallery, new delhi, 2007

size variable,
no object is taller than 4 inches

edge of nations

installation view of tank,

Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, 2007

Infrared can not be seen by eyes

The work consist of long PVC pipes, L shaped at the base and one pipe extending up, right angle to the base. On top of each of them has a moving object. The L shaped base forms a kind of maze. The objects are connected to a circuit which switches them on and off.
A small car,Cheese made toy, operated by battery, that changes direction when it hits an obstacle, moves in this maze, trying to find its way.The installation size is variable. The largest of the pipes is about 5 feet by 4 feet at the base and 7&1/2 feet tall, the smallest is 2 feet by 4 feet by 1 foot. These measurements are without the object on top.
people can move through the maze too - if it is installed in a passage or something like that.There are 9 structures and around 12 objects, plus the car.

"Mechanisms of Motion" curated by Marta Jakimowicz, 16th, 2008, Anant Art Centre, Noida (Delhi, U.P.)

Light Tank

Light Tank 48" x 26" x 30"

Rope lights, wood, motors and lots of electrical relays

The device with a spout has these strings of light coming out of it. It has a rather complicated mechanical circuit attached to it and comes on when a switch is pressed by the spectator. All the lights do not come on at the same time but works in a pattern controlled by the circuit.

"Re-visioning Materiality", 19th December 2007 Gallery Espace, New Delhi

Nancy wrote beautifully about the work :

Artworks seem to have an inflated ego today, big enough to burst, glossy enough to fall into place in an interior designer’s manual. And of course, they unfailingly make a specious nod to international politics or national crisis. Hoping, presumably, that the grimness of the political catastrophe will make up for their lack of imagination and integrity. As more and more packaged and branded art circulates with assembly-line precision, imagine works that are differently abled. That blink nervously and pull your leg even as they themselves limp into action. Artworks that are guided as much by the DIY ethic of the hackers and the thrifty innovations of the scavengers who service the recycling economy; that solemnly adopt poor materials only to take the piss out of them Dadaist style. Mukhopadhyay’s extended sculptures are marked by a deviant materiality sourced from the rejects of high art.

In this show, Mukhopadhyay who is in the habit of overturning all seats of power (recall his split and splintered chair thrones, 2000), topples a stool and places the rudiments of a tank on it. A nest of wires lie tangled between its legs while a bare wooden dome unleashes a gun fashioned from a handy piece of PVC pipe. Rope lights anticipating a festival swirl around the stool and stream out of the PVC spout. A switch activates the complicated and rather precarious circuitry put together by the artist. When the tank is ‘fired’ light gallops through the serpentine tubes and rebounds. Mukhopadhyay paradoxically invests light with the properties of darkness, a light that carries the threat of a graveyard but projects the look of a luminous Diwali or Durga Puja.

This phallic toy is a comment on the devastating military games played by cretinous little men. Imagine Bush rocking on a hobby horse, hurling ‘smart’ bombs at unsuspecting villagers in Afghanistan. The artist shoots his absurdist fantasies at us, at the speed of light. But wait for the quintessential Mukhopadhyay breakdown, communication is not as simple as switching on a light. Especially so, in this world of negative vibrations where an artist has to make a strong effort to transmit his energies to a viewer.

Nancy Adajania