Patience pays

The Nature Morte gallery of New York has been functioning in Delhi for quite some time, but its latest avatar in Hauz Khas Village at Mulk...

The Nature Morte gallery of New York has been functioning in Delhi for quite some time, but its latest avatar in Hauz Khas Village at Mulk Raj Anand’s cultural centre, Lokayata, is perhaps the best one of the whole series.Indeed, its first two exhibitions of Natraj Sharma, one of our most adept artists who balances a sensitivity to colour and texture with industrial imagery, and now a group show of a number of artists gives one the impression that the gallery is not only here to stay but has begun to attract a number of our avant-garde artists including Vivan Sundaram.

The present exhibition features the work of Bhupen Khakhar, Bharati Kher, Ravinder Reddy, Nicola Durvasula, Pablo Bartholomew, Srinidhi Sheshadri, David Kalal, Suzanne Joelson and Subodh Gupta.

The works vary from a very tasteful treatment of homosexuality by Khakhar to an almost `op’ set of abstracts by Kher, very precise minimalist works by Nicola Durvasula and excellent studies of Delhi’s road cattle by Subodh Gupta. The exhibition, on the whole, reflects a very wide range of expressions, from realistic representation to `op’, `pop’, surrealist, folk and pure abstract.

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The exhibition concentrates on a range rather than thematic consonance, which seems to be more in keeping with the market principle than with concepts. But then the market principle has the upper hand today and it will reflect also in the way we purvey our ideas, too.

There is no doubt ideas sell or do not; advertising is all about that. Art is only a step away. If advertising sells products or is meant to, gallery art has to sell ideas to survive. So what the best galleries and artists can do is to ensure they make bright ideas and perceptions saleable.

This is not as easy a job as many seem to think because there are a lot of buyers buying bad art and that affects the market of good art adversely.As a result galleries exhibiting good art have to rely on their staying power, have to concentrate on giving really good artists more exposure and have to wait for tastes to improve. The Nature Morte gallery seems to have imbibed these lessons well.

— Suneet Chopra