Oil paintings which look like objects strewn around in an unkempt home. Ink sketches on the pages of an old musical composition. Grey landscapes inspired from "glitch-pop". An illustration that is titled "Green Tea experiment to understand Zurich weather pattern”.
Turn of the Tide: 20/20, the 20th anniversary show of Khoj International, promises to be (or should we say 'threatens'?) all about the bizarre and the beautiful, the ordinary and the fantastical.
Benitha Perciyal's architectural piece to be displayed at the Khoj International show
The show promises a peek into the anatomy and soul of what emerging contemporary Indian art looks like. The exhibition-cum-fundraiser consists of works generously donated by 20 of the most exciting artists who have been associated with the collective through its many residencies, public projects and programmes. Most of these artists have been part of other international residencies, group and solo shows in India and abroad, and exemplify the agony and ecstasy of being a young practising contemporary artist in South Asia.
Abir Karmakar's hyper-realistic paintings, Amshu Chukki's brooding charcoal sketches, Chennai-based Benitha Perciyal's architectural pieces with reused Burma and teak wood, or Katyayini Gargi's delightfully bright and minimalist renderings in gouache and 3D collage are some of the many highlights of the show. "Benitha Perciyal's sculpture brings to mind the slow decay and fragility of the tangible self. Sahil Naik's disquieting 'Portraits of Home/Exit wounds,' opens a portal into homes in disaster zones living their twilight as sites of collective mourning. Prabhakar Pachpute, with his animal machine drawings, investigates themes of acquisition, labour, mining and loss of land," says Mario D'Souza, who works as curator at Khoj.
The show, which is also a collateral event of India Art Fair 2018, is aptly titled 'Turn of the Tide'. This not-for-profit art organisation, set up in 1997, is now seeking to further push the envelope for contemporary art in a changed set of social and economic circumstances, after 20 years of incubating some of the most experimental and avant-garde creative practitioners. "At this point in the timeline of Khoj, we are working with science, law, migration and reinventing approaches of art towards ecology and socially engaged practice," says D'Souza who rues the scarcity of funding and support for such unconventional ideas. Art critics have regularly pointed out how India does not have a robust pool of collectors for contemporary art.
Although Khoj has held fundraisers earlier by presenting individual artist portfolios and even an auction by Christie's, this exhibition is the first of its kind from the collective in terms of scale and the solidarity of vision it represents by asking: "what does it mean to be contemporary in south Asia?"
Turn of the Tide: 20/20 is on view from February 11 to 24. Artworks in the exhibition cost anywhere between Rs 1-6 lakh.
