As we are overwhelmed by the sense of an outsider in a presence, exacerbated by never knowing the proper accent, the space here at Emami Art is filled to capacity with the hierarchies that prevail, the resulting subjugations, the dogmas of prescribed thinking, the inequality of gender, the violence and resulting chaos of life in the Indian sub-continent, depravation resulted from discrimination before we lapse into the metaphor of purity of signs, the dreadful notion of contamination, behind the walls of unreasoning logic, a retreat to our own narcissism.
In the sphere of culture and the arts, new reflections and alternate practices manifest themselves as a series of questions, about how to rediscover domestic/indigenous spaces without disengaging the world system. Cut edge artists of the present reason out proposition for locating the subversion of art practice in the interstices of urban spaces and beyond. Aspects of culture, in the wider sense, which were previously distinguished in a hierarchical manner are rendered equivalent as simulation. They are replete with visual texts retrieved from the times and spaces these artists travel inwardly and intensely with almost indiscriminate abandon, unconfined; spewing gut-level reactions in their treatment of subjects and material, balancing between the subjective and emotive. For the modernists it was the question of scrutinizing the living reality, which is diverse, but direct and different position of art have confronted the viewer in an overwhelming and dizzying fashion-exciting that it contrasts the work of major artists with widely disparate styles. What our contemporary artists desire is a renewal of a visual language, and the return of its object to the richness and range of experience. All that is of the essence here, further quest is useless, unnecessary.
For example, art practice of representation that provides complex accounts. For each of us there are several tracks framed within time, variously traversed, so that cultural change is simultaneously demurred and fast, not just across fraternities or associations, but within socially and historically located selves. Cut edge artists of the present reason out proposition for locating the subversion of art practice in the interstices of urban spaces and beyond. Isn’t it the trope of our times to locate the question of culture in the realm of the beyond? You have all the truth here within these walls. Space is an amorphous concept in post- colonial discourse. The space constructed at here is all about physical, metaphoric and psychological connotations that are almost always intertwined and represented in socio-linguistic patterns.
The works here confront our traditional experience of sound, of light, of setting-these are wrenched out of context, re-ordered and returned to a new, subtle questioning role of reflecting the artist’s choice of subject. Our existence is marked by a tenebrous sense of survival, living on the borderlines of the present and ‘Fluid Boundaries’ shall address such concern. That of the artist’s struggle with inhibitions, contradictions, disillusionment, subalterneity, political and personal isolation. Each new step, each new possibility retreats into old solutions and is discarded. But it would be impossible to stop- one has to create the text in spite of the odds, for example the sculpture/installations of Tapas Biswas or in the paintings of Suman De. A recurrent issue today most often is the plight of the individual in a highly technological world as in the works of Bholanath Rudra or Snehasish Maity. However, you will find the works of ‘Fluid Boundaries’ are ultimately optimistic although bristling with images of hope, aggression, human relations, confrontation, displacement, there is a sense, achieved through ironic focus, that beyond lies something more hopeful but first it is necessary to overturn what we have and create the neutral space from which new things shall grow by creating un/usual interactions between visual art, architecture, and the materials of everyday, popular and media cultures as we get to view in Debasis Barui’s installations.. It will also be all about physical, metaphoric and psychological connotations that are almost always intertwined and represented in socio-linguistic patterns.
Isn’t it that dialogue is a continuous process: it has little to do with past concepts of edification but emerges as a vital process, a landscape where we become familiar with the changes influencing our lives. This group show is comprised works by, a representative fraction of a region, which has contributed enormously in the making of our contemporary visual text. What is also important for us that works in this show need to be seen in the context of its current concerns, practices and expectations provide a sort of crucible of the art of the moment- a shifting weave of memory that takes place, gaze that is intimate and penetrating. Viewings at Emami Art will result not in familiarity but fresh discoveries.