‘The Alley’ by Priyesh Trivedi | Shrikant Arora, Greater Than Team
It is rather funny to think that there once existed a famous painting which argued against the merits of gin compared with beer. William Hogarth—known for his ironic, “Conversation” paintings—created a pair of prints in 1751 called ‘Gin Lane’ and ‘Beer Street’. The English painter depicted Gin Lane dwellers as vain guzzlers in a fashionable society with no moral compass. Beer drinkers, in contrast, were humble and hardworking folks. The engravings were meant to serve as a public health warning against alcoholism and the uncontrolled sale of cheap gin. Cut to 2022 and every responsible drinker almost seems like a gin junkie. At least, to bona fide gin junkies.
Trust Nao Spirits—the company leading the pack in making gin cool and craft in India with their brand, Greater Than—to flip the narrative. They commissioned five artists to create their own modern interpretations of Hogarth’s Gin Lane. Limited edition prints of the five pieces are now up for sale. THE WEEK’s pick is ‘The Alley’ by Priyesh Trivedi, who is also the creator of the ‘Adarsh Balak’ series, popular for parodying educational posters of the 1980s and 1990s.
‘The Alley’ is an imagined space between Hogarth’s Beer Street and Gin Lane, free of prejudices. The subjects are in skeletal forms to blur the class distinction between gin and beer drinkers. “‘The Alley’ is at the edge of the street and the corner of the lane where everyone is past their mortality no matter what you drink,” says Trivedi about his take.