Lounge
Newer readings of K.G. Subramanyan’s legacy
Summary
An exhibition to mark K.G. Subramanyan’s centenary looks at newer ways of making his legacy relevant todayHow do you make the legacy of an artist like K.G. Subramanyan relevant for the next 100 years?" That was the thought that Nancy Adajania set out for the retrospective-scale exhibition to mark the birth centenary year of the Indian modernist, who scripted a new artistic identity for the nation post-independence. While Subramanyan is well-known for being a versatile and prolific thinker and artist, who worked on reverse paintings, children’s books, drawings and toys, Adajania wanted to introduce a shift in focus through the show One Hundred Years and Counting: Re-Scripting KG Subramanyan. This is incidentally the largest such showcase in eastern India after his death in 2016.
Currently on view at Emami Art, Kolkata, in collaboration with Seagull, the exhibition seeks to re-assess the artist’s legacy, and dismantle the generic readings that persist about him and his work. “I decided to focus on KG Subramanyan’s political philosophy by highlighting his pluralist vision, and his belief in conviviality over conflict, through his murals and children’s books. I wanted to critically contextualise his ideological affinity for the Gandhian notion of the idealised village, as well as emphasise his dialogue with (Rabindranath) Tagore’s belief in aesthetics as a path to a more just and imaginatively expansive society," elaborates Adajania, who is a Mumbai-based cultural theorist and curator.
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She asserts that the show is not a hagiography, but is imbued with criticality at different levels. One of the most important layers that Adajania has introduced is that of a feminist perspective by including works of women artists, who were influenced by him. Through this juxtaposition, we can see how they project their own feminist subjectivity versus the way Subramanyan would represent the female figure. “I deliberately inserted Pushpamala N.’s early terracotta and plaster-of-Paris sculptures from the 1980s, which dealt with desire in adolescent girls and older women. Pushpamala was hugely influenced by his work, but in her sculptures, desire is inscrutable. Compare this with Subramanyan’s ambivalent take on female agency and sexuality," says Adajania. Then there are Mrinalini Mukherjee’s fabric creations from her student days when Subramanyan advised her to opt for these as the main medium of her work.
Spanning more than seven decades of the modernist’s practice, the show includes over 200 works, including early paintings from the 1950s, reverse paintings on acrylic, marker pen works on paper, inventive toys made for the Fine Arts Fairs at the MS University, Vadodara, between 1962-79, mock-ups of children’s books, and more.
Be it through the conceptual framework or the exhibition scenography, Adajania has tried to create a theatre of provocations. She has tried to find an “elegant way" of conveying new readings of Subramanyan’s work. “I respond to the playful impulse in his practice," she says. So, you will find vinyl cut-outs on the walls and the floor, which are based on figures from his illustrated children’s books from the 1970s. In fact, the exhibition begins with these books, which were earlier seen as something minor in his practice. “Most of his children’s books have a subtle political message. Take, for instance, Robby, an endearing tale about a little boy, who is called by many different names. At a time when the past is being weaponised, I wanted to show K.G. Subramanyan’s inclusive and pluralist vision for the present. The past must be revisited critically, so that it reveals the complex, sometimes contradictory, currents from which our present is shaped," she elaborates.
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In a way, the show marks an intersection between the ideological commitments of the artist and the curator—and that is evident in the kind of threads she has woven through the exhibition. For instance, Adajania connects his pluralist language with the polymorphic figures in his beautiful reverse paintings. “Subramanyan emphasised those in-between spaces when humans cease to be mortals but don’t get elevated to the level of deities either," she elaborates. With Adajania’s background in cinema studies, she has tried to create “unpredictable adjacencies" between the artist’s work and those of directors such as Ritwik Ghatak. “I show polymorphs in K.G.’s paintings next to Ghatak’s bahurupi from Subarnarekha (1965)," she adds. “Both showcase the space between magic, myth and the fragile ordinariness of everyday life."
At Emami Art, Kolkata, till 21 June, 11am-pm (closed on Sundays)
