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

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

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

Public Sculptures for Ants

Every day when I go to my studio in the early morning I use pick up tiny little objects on the pavement of our building society. These objects became the Public Sculpture for Ants. They are small assemblages most of them less than two inches in height.

installation view at Vadehra Art Gallery