MILAN MILANO ITALY | VIA MONTENAPOLEONE PEOPLE & EVENTS | PEOPLE & EVENTS IN VIA MONTENAPOLEONE

The exhibition presents works from fifteen emblematic Indian artists - SHEBA CHHACCHI, ATUL DODIYA, ANITA DUBE, PROBIR GUPTA, SUBODH GUPTA, RANBIR KALEKA, JITISH KALLAT, REENA SAINI KALLAT, BHARTI KHER, NALINI MALANI, RAQS MEDIA COLLECTIVE, RAGHUBIR SINGH, VIVAN SUNDARAM, HEMA UPADHYAY, AVINASH VEERAGHAVAN – revealing all the contradictions of contemporary India.
The artists invited to Milan are sculptors, painters and video artists, whose works are inspired by the themes affecting current Indian society; not only immigration, but also environmental protection, the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi, the loss of traditional values, and poverty and wealth in the globalised world.
Indeed, current-day India is not only that extremely poor country which has come out of colonial domination, known exclusively for the export of its philosophical-religious ideas. Today the Indian metropolises are in the grip of a strong wind of modernisation, and a post-modern and urban society is rising up alongside the pre-modern local structures, a society differing from that in which the ancient primordial and superstitious India still exists. In the same way, post-modern Indian art is a response to the basic contradiction which sets the city against the countryside, modernity against tradition, spirituality against the material world and underdevelopment against the most cutting-edge technology.
The invited Indian artists share the very instruments of communication of global civilisation with the other contemporary artists from all over the world. Nevertheless the relationship between globalisation and tradition in the modern world in India is even more extreme than in other countries, given its tradition of ancient wisdom and – at the same time – some of the most advanced forms of progress in the world.
The exhibition shows a series of works which are very different but bound by an aura of great intensity: some are poetic such as the beautiful light boxes by Sheba Chhachhi with imaginary landscapes in movement or Subodh Gupta’s extraordinary installations using simple objects from everyday life such as milk buckets, suitcases and kitchen utensils, which refer to the current state of transformation which Indian society is undergoing, or the figures in synchrony with their own reflection in the video by Ranbin Kaleka, or Reena Kaliat’s work on the fragility of the human condition with twelve saris bearing a text written in Braille, accompanied by recipe books, sounds and smells. Some of the works are stronger and have explicit references to politics, war and violence, such as the museum cases with large works on paper, fragments of Bollywood film posters, but also human bones and art fragments by Atul Dodya or the gloomy installations by Anita Dube made of industrial objects, handcrafted and organic, creating agglomerates, symbol of the cities in ruins or the installation with five thousand synthetic bones in the shape of letters of the alphabet with which Jitisd Kallat evokes Gandhi’s important speech on the conduct of the “civil disobedience” to be opposed against the brutal “Salt Act” introduced by the British in 1930. But there is also a more figurative artist in the form of Probir Gupta, whose work is an indictment against the triumph of the institutionalised church and the loss of Christian values, with a caste of powerful priests looming over a weak Christ. Or an artist such as Bharti Kher who tackles themes such as class, feminism and consumerism, creating life-size sculptures of animals covered in bindis, the typical traditional Indian decoration which the women wear on their foreheads.
But there are also highly dramatic video-installations such as Mother India by Nalini Malani, a work on the language of suffering expressed by the hundreds of Indian and Pakistani women raped during the national wars of independence. O They called it the XXth Century by the Raqs Media Collective, three independent media experts who have been working on urban spaces since 1991, recreate the sense of alienation of the modern cities and propose a reflection on what happens when modernity meets its shadow. Or even Twelve Bed Ward, where Vivian Sundaram chooses the theme of social and environmental protest, installing twelve beds with wired bed frames on which rest used shoes, faintly lit by the same number of lamps.
And the artworks change once more with the extraordinary photographs by Raghubir Singh, the renowned Indian photographer who died in ’99, creator of touching images which fully convey the beauty of his country and its multiform colours. Or with the splendid sculpture of matchsticks by Hema Upadhyay, bringing attention to those who find themselves without roots in a fragmented age. Or the slide show by Avinash Veeraraghavan, which presents surreal and lively urban scenes, to be interpreted as each individual viewer sees fit. The image of URBAN MANNERS is an original creation by this artist. All works of great impact and meaning, highly modern and at the same time rich in tradition, which strongly express the two souls of contemporary India, also fully expressed in the fitting-out of the exhibition – by architect Uliva Velo – with its coloured structures in various geometric forms.

Adelina von Furstenberg

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