Material Ruptures

 Material  Ruptures       Thinking  thought  usually  amounts  to  withdrawing  into  a  dimensionless  place  in  which  the  idea  of   thought   alone   persists.   But   thought   in   reality   spaces   itself   out   into   the   world.   It   informs   the   imaginary   of   peoples,   their   varied   poetics,   which   it   then   transforms,   meaning,   in   them   its   risk   becomes  realized.    Culture  is  the  precaution  of  those  who  claim  to  think  thought  but  who  steer  clear   of   its   chaotic   journey.   Evolving   cultures   infer   Relation,   the   overstepping   that   grounds   their   unity-­‐ diversity.    

-­‐  Edouard  Glissant,  Poetics  of  Relation       A   familiar   narrative   when   contextualizing   artistic   and   cultural   production   within   a   specific   region   is   the   search   for   a   certain   element   of   rootedness.   A   region   however   is   best   described   as   a   space   that   is   defined   and   looked   at   through   a   multiplicity   of   viewpoints.  There  is  really  no  one  region.  A  region  exists  in  the  contemporary  as  many   imagined  abstractions  disguised  as  absolutes;  where  one  perspective  is  privileged  over   another.   However,   one   cannot   look   at   a   ‘place’   as   a   totality.     To   ‘see’   is   to   acknowledge   a   region   as  an  ambiguous  “multiplicity  of  viewpoints”  generating  a  diversity  of  meanings,   histories,   geographies   and   cultures   that   may   or   may   not   connect   to   each   other;   in   the   now  or  perhaps  in  the  never,  through  a  certain  strain  of  ‘Poetics’.       And   it   is   in   the   nuance   of   the   Poetics,   which  we   use   to   re-­‐imagine   the   notion   of   a   region,   that   we   find   a   language   to   contextualize   its   artistic   and   cultural   production   as   well.     Language   that   describes,   articulates   and   postulates   what   has   or   could   occur   when   we   confront  a  work  of  art  should  be  re-­‐imagined  as  “rhizomatic”1  rather  than  a  “whole”  in   generating   meaning.   New   ways   of   defining   culture   exists   in   the   power   of   ‘Relation’   –   where   many   contexts   spill   and   flow   and   where   “relation   is   not   made   up   of   things   that   are   foreign   but   of   shared   knowledge.”2  In   this   un-­‐rooted   ‘Here’,   every   context,   similar   and  disparate,  exists  at  a  distance  from  each  other  so  that  it  enables  the  breaking  down   of   binary   dynamics   and   systems   that   currently   define   Global   culturespeak.   This   distancing  is  healthy.  This  distancing  “is  necessary  to  Relation  and  depend[s]  on  it:  like   the   coexistence   of   sea   olive   and   manchineel.”3  When   distancing   is   recognized   at   the   point   of   confronting   a   body   of   work,   it   does   not   allow   you   to   recognize   anything   you   see   as   obvious.   Rather,   what   is   immediately   set   in   motion   when   you   come   to   an   object   or   idea   or   its   many   essences,   is   that   you   are   automatically   engaging   in   a   process   of   connecting  to  find  myriad  possibilities  where  at  first  you  thought  none  existed.       The  curatorial  process  therefore  is  not  about  creating  a  particular  new.  It  is  a  space  of   imagination4.  It  is  a  Language  that  is  empowering  when  re-­‐framed  within  the  Glissantian  

                                                                                                                1  Glissant  refers  to  Gilles  Deleuze  and  Felix  Guattari  who  criticize  the  idea  of  the  ‘root‘.  He  speaks   of  “the  notion  of  the  rhizome  as  maintaining  its  rootedness  but  challenges  that  of  a  totalitarian   root.’  Poetics  of  Relation’,  Edouard  Gliassant,  11.   2  Poetics  of  Relation,  8   3    Ibid,157.   4  “Glissant's  sense  differs  from  the  commonsense  English  usage  of  a  conception  that  is  a  conscious   mental  image.  Furthermore,  the  now  widely  accepted  Lacanian  sense  in  which  the  Imaginary,  the   order  of  perception  and  hallucination,  is  contrasted  with  the  Symbolic  (the  order  of  discursive  and   symbolic  action)  and  the  Real  (not  just  "reality"  but  what  is  absolutely  unrepresentable)  does  not   apply.  For  Glissant  the  imaginary  is  aIl  the  ways  a  culture  has  of  perceiving  and  conceiving  of  the   world.  Hence,  every  human  culture  will  have  its  own  particular  imaginary.”  Betsy  Wing,Poetics  of   Relation,  Glissant,  22

Poetics   rather   than   when   it   exists   as   a   negative   within   a   binary.   So   the   abstract,   the   opaque,   the   disparate   and   the   ambiguous   are   pragmatic   terms   within   the   scope   of   the   curatorial   imaginary   rather   than   devolving   into   the   prevailing   rhetoric   of   the   contemporary.       It   is   from   this   space   of   ‘”varied   poetics”   of   the   region,   of   artistic   practice   and   of   the   curatorial   that   we   enter   the   works   of   Kumaresan   Selvaraj,   Manisha   Parekh,   Rathin   Barman   and   Sachin   George   Sebastian.   Each   practice   is   seemingly   disparate   and   this   curatorial  “distancing”  becomes  imperative,  in  order  for  subtle  connections  to  take  place   within   the   exhibition   space.   ‘Material   Ruptures’   explores   how   small   fractures   in   seemingly  homogenous  surfaces  can  disrupt,  reveal,  or  reconfigure  new  poetic  ways  of   seeing.   Be   it   a   monument,   an   urban   landscape,   parts   of   an   edifice   or   a   medium   in   its   elemental   form,   each   artists   work   in   the   exhibition   elicits   a   language   of   “relation”   where   meanings   are   imagined   by   way   of   diverse   multiplicities   rather   than   by   a   fixed   totality.   Ruptures   reveal   surfaces   as   an   accumulation   of   material   experiences,   a   visceral   means   through   which   we   encounter   the   unseen   and   untold.   Ruptures   thereby   necessitate   movement   within   the   exhibition   space   and   beyond   an   optical   encountering   of   the   art   ‘object’.   Navigating   through   the   space   of   the   gallery   demands   a   different   kind   of   engagement,   wherein   to   move   from   one   work   to   another,   from   one   artistic   whole   to   another,  necessitates  an  uncovering.  The  ebb  and  flow  of  movement  and  uncovering  is   immediate   within   the   physicality   of   our   body   while   continuously   making   the   less   obvious,  palpable.         Kumaresan   Selvaraj’s   sculptures   in   wood,   cement,   paint   and   paper   gently   erupt   and   await   to   overflow   from   within   its   surface   as   a   poignant   calling   to   our   inner   existential   conundrums.   In   his   series   of   sculptures   Selvaraj   employs   an   aesthetic   of   spillage.   Something   from   within   is   always   making   its   way   out.   In   ‘Number   of   layers   on   my   surface’,   streaks   of   thick   paint,   are   frozen   in   a   moment   of   swirl   right   where   the   large   rectangular   cement   block   breaks.   In   the   objects   gentle   unraveling   of   itself   we   are   left   with  questions;  the  break  isn’t  one  of  violence,  rather  it  is  a  reveal.  The  cold  grey  block   reminds   us   of   familiar   geographies.   Selvaraj   however,   defamiliarises   it   for   the   viewer.   The  works  don’t  merely  facilitate  a  discussion  about  the  fraught  relationship  of  man  and   city.  In  the  ‘Here’,  to  ‘see’  is  to  come  undone.       Manisha   Parekh's  drawings  are  an  exploration  of  mark  making  as  a  primal  gesture.  In   her  series  ‘Butterflies’,  Parekh  explores  the  textures  of  graphite  as  it  smears,  blots  and   smudges   the   papers   surface.   The   exactitude   of   the   grid   belies   the   strains   of   the   lyrical   in   her  gestures  as  she  constructs  elements  of  a  pictorial  order  from  which  many  narratives   coalesce.  Parekh  is  interested  in  the  very  forms  that  will  shape  into  units  that  can  then   be  many  things.   ‘Meanings’  which  stem  out  of  the  viewer’s  gaze  are  at  a  distance  from   the  artistic  intent.  Therefore  the  process  rather  than  the  finality  of  engaging  with  each   drawing,   discloses   a   lot   more.   It   engenders   movement   along   the   surfaces,   without   the   weightiness  of  burdened  intentions  and  expectations.               It   is   this   same   movement   that   is   instigated   in   Rathin   Barman’s   drawings   and   sculptures.  He  confronts  the  city  as  a  political  phenomenon,  reflecting  many  ideologies   and   different   socio-­‐political   points   of   view.   While   this   can   translate   into   something   very   particular,   Barman’s   drawings   and   sculptures   exude   a   modulated   subtlety   that   holds   more   power   than   the   broad   rhetoric   being   alluded   to   in   his   works.   His   suite   of   twelve   drawings   ‘Not   Waiting   for   the   Summer’,   consists   of   a   zig-­‐zag   of   angular   lines,   suggesting   a  trace  or  an  incomplete  blueprint  of  a  man  made  structure.    Within  these  lines,  intimate  

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

stories   of   domesticity,   alienation   or   routine   uncover   themselves   in   golden   brown   and   reds  -­‐  slippers,  an  oil  can,  a  table,  a  plant.  Homogeneity  is  disrupted  in  a  similar  vein  in   Barman’s   stacked   ‘Rectangles   for   Unknown   Structures’   and   in   the   neatly   laid   out,   inpenetrable  home-­‐like  edifices  in  ‘And  the  Yard  was  Large’.           Sachin   George   Sebastian’s   new   body   of   work   ‘Constructed   Conversations’   extends   a   practice   that   requires   us   to   infer   meaning   from   a   complex   network   of   relationships   between   macrocosms   and   microcosms   within   the   notion   of   urbanity.   While   his   earlier   works   looked   at   the   metropolis,   the   new   body   of   work   zooms  in   the  gaze   to   find   what   may   lie   embedded   in   the   fissures   and   cracks.   Sebastian   employs   repetition;   using   particular   patterns   derived   from   images   he   clicks   of   cityscapes.   The   patterns   create   kaleidoscopic   forms   that   float   organically   through   precise   cut   pieces   of   metal   that   are   then  arranged  into  structures  which  are  at  once  familiar  and  yet  non-­‐specific.  Ambiguity   of   the   ‘image’   as   a   fragment   dissipating   on   the   visible   exterior,   as   well   as   in   the   final   piecing  together  that  alludes  to  an  architectural  arrangement,  remains  an  aesthetic  tool   to  help  us  ‘see’.    

                                                 

 -­‐Meenakshi  Thirukode