Some reviews and articles

An Art Critic speaks through her works

Anahite Contractor, a curator and poet, exhibited her visual creations last October. The venue of the show, a furniture/ antique shop (Trafford House), had an apparent possibility for a dialogue with the exhibits. Interactivity, the crux of Anahite's work, was coupled with a sense of affinity. Her poems and parts thereof, formed the 'image' in most of the works. These text-images, handwritten with a pencil on handmade paper, or with a felt pen on a transparent plastic sheet, even engraved on thin sheets of copper and brass, communed with objects that referred to natural and man-made worlds: leaves, pods on one side, and 'Munim-peti', book, scrolls, slates on the other. Personal memorabilia showed its abundance, sometimes at the helm of the work. The microscopic size of the text that curved its lines into forms, made it difficult to read. As if the viewer was not supposed to interact with the text. Anhite agress, " experience of looking at the text was sometimes reduced to voyeur", she exclaims. This can be seen as Anahite's take on the 'legibility" of any work of art- her qustioning intervention about the extent of privacy revealed. She suggested transparency, instead of a sporadic revealation. To the viewer, personal 'everyday' memorabilia like a used pen and an old school badge, the square nails - 'sacred' to the Muslim believers, made the microcosm even more intricate, thus commanding a more intimate, affectionate way to look at them! The use of Emboridery by the artist, hand-made paper by Medha Prabhakar, and carpentry by Shyam underlined the Art/craft communion while the works addressed issues of personal trasparency and transcedence of the momentous. Yet, the image of a comma seemed more formal. Titled "the colour of water, was supported by the British Council, Sam manekshaw Niloufer and Rishad Rustomji.

Simple and interactive!

>Anant Joshi's Installation, 'Black to Play & Draw'

articles

Baba Gajbar, a forgotten Realist

(published in the Exhibition Catalogue by Nehru Centre, Mumbai)

Maharashtrians, through history, have remained anti-colonial cultural lot. Instead of being submissive to the colonial culture, they have galloped and grasped the colonizer’s cultural eminence to be internalized in the ‘mainstream Maharashtrian’ culture.
One such gallop is evident in the renaissance-to- modernism transition that started in political, social and other fields from the early late 19th century. Maharashtra had its heroes, who could grasp this transition in Europe, in every field! Lokmanya Tilak in Politics, Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj in social justice, Baburao Painter in the visual arts including film, made new beginnings that were distinctively heroic. Although Baba Gajbar was not one among these heroes, his life and times tell us that he was a product of this era of cultural comprehension that unleashed new values and goals of life for the commoners. Gajbar, a teacher of many an artist besides Ganpatrao Wadangekar, always preferred to be “realist” than a Hero.

this is an excerpt. The published article runs > 700 words