Janet Wells’ quarterly review of the Arts, Gallery and Museum scene.
Note that this article was printed in the winter 2024 issue of Barbican Life and the exhibitions in the Barbican have now finished.
Barbican Art Gallery
The Imaginary Institution of India – Art 1975 – 1998
Ends 5 Jan 2025
I have been re-reading the little pink book, given on entry; there are audio sets available: No explanatory notes on the walls.
What is striking is that there is so much going on here; thirty artists, each one exploring a way, through a diverse use of media; each piece (which has its own idiosyncratic artistic merits) for it is in each case, the subject that predominates; It totally focuses on the many social and economic issues in India during the 1970’s. 80’s and 90’s. If you remember, it wasn’t so brilliant here either: Listed UK headlines: Unemployment, inflation, HIV-AIDS, wars, strikes and indeed deadly violence: The difference is that the British had right of protest.
The Imaginary Institution of India – Art 1975 – 1998 reminds us that in Independent India, democratic rights had been suspended and dissenting voices arrested, between 1975 – 1977, through Indira Gandhi’s State of Emergency, – her draconian measures to solve India’s problems. Even after she was defeated, social transformation remained sidelined by competing coalition governments. This exhibition combines the work of 30 Indian artists as a response to the suspension of civil liberties: They achieved this through the visual arts, utilizing a very wide variety of media: Here there is painting, print, sculpture, photography, installation and film – that focuses on topics of oppression, discrimination of class and caste, the harrowing tales connected to the dowry, the criminalization of homosexuality – with the consequential sadness within the queer community; the underground nuclear tests in 1974; the devastating Bhopal gas leak of 1984; There is gentler subjects: Social observation of family, community , and friendship.
Off Lamington Road 1982 – 86 painted by Gieve Patel, a medical doctor who took the city of Bombay (Mumbai) as his subject: Lamington St (where all aspects of human life were packed) was an alley way, that he passed daily on his way to work. Artist, Gulammohammed Sheikh ‘s painting Speechless City 1975, oil on canvas, a desolate urban landscape: The earth, a glowing orange, a foreground where wild dogs wander through an abandoned village and the distant city remains an empty shell. Nilma Sheika relates in a series of 12 narrative paintings on paper, When Champa Grew Up. The tragic story of Champa, from her carefree childhood to a teenage dowry marriage and her shocking death – from the hands of her abusive parents in law. Sheba Chhachhi continues to follow the anti-dowry activists with a series of black and white photos. Sheela Gowda (b1957) had trained as a figurative painter but in order to try and make a more potent response to violence, she began to experiment with other materials: Cow dung: Referencing the sacredness of the cow in the Hindu religion; The dung was utilized in many ways – allowed only by women: Here we have installations of cow pats and bricks with the visible hand print of women or a red pigment with the suggestion of violence.
State regulations were reduced in 1991- due to a fiscal crisis – but wealth was concentrated within a small group of corporations and elitists and the creation of a new middle class, at the same time, dispossessing millions of other citizens.
Jitish Kallat (b1974) in 1997 produced a mixed media canvas called Evidence from the Evaporite (He Followed the Sun and Died). The central figure is a human body partially obscured by a water tank and surrounded by drawings of seemingly agitated men trapped in cylindrical containers. Notes in the little pink book tell that: this work presents the changes in Bombay following the riots of 1992 -93, the individual experiences of living through such times, and the ensuing formation of ghettoes. It refers to the growing market in 1990’s India for media technology and image production. There are other artists represented who’s work centers on this subject: CK Rajan (b1960), Jangarh Singh Shyam, Anitia Dube (b1958) and Navjot Altaf.
Curator: Anay Jhaver
The Curve Barbican
Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum: It Will End In Tears
Ends 5 Jan 2025
What’s it all about! The artist has provided us with an installation with film references: Structures in plywood that represent film sets; A walkway to be navigated as part of the experience. But what about the artwork? The drawings obviously represent a story board – but surely, aren’t there some gaps?
I have recently been watching the recent tv detective series, Ludwig: Ludwig, the problem solver, identical twin impersonator. With its monochromatic use of colour, the manipulation of light to reveal or hide and cinematic playfulness. Certainly, the art installation hasn’t got the flexibility of film but does the attempt at story telling provide us with enough clues – I am not sure. Then, if Ludwig is a detective comedy, It Will End In Tears is definitely more film noir.
The drawings in pencil, are on sheets of plywood (140x300cm); supported by thin washes of sepia or grey, cross hatch or thickly perpendicular, the blonde surface of the untreated wood exposed. The artist appears to have chosen to draw her characters as if, from the basic form, of a wooden artist’s dummy.
It Will End In Tears – Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum
Frame one: it begins with an arrival: The back view of a women, dressed in heavy winter attire, holding a large bag. To the left, a small dwelling house within a walled compound, wide fenced, arid landscape beyond. The second frame: Another woman; in a car facing out front; an aircraft takes up the full area of the side window. Third frame: Two women in a car?
Hard to tell how many characters take part – but why do all the women appear to have the same face?
Certainly, there is murder, sex, possible infidelity and, it appears, a sentencing but I have misunderstood the main objective of the piece: The artist had set out to tell the story of a woman’s return to a midcentury colonial outpost: To her hometown after living some time abroad. She has returned to a place that is both familiar and yet foreign. In one frame, we see her as two images standing back-to-back: one figure is knocking on a door, the other is grim faced and smoking.
In the notes it states that: Pamela Phatsmimo set out to provoke domestic spaces, colonial bureaucracies, travel, waiting room, and religious gatherings……. Walking through these spaces ……. punctuated by painted scene of Bettina’s (our protagonist’s), new life, and connected by ramps and wooden walkways – a multivalent narrative unfurls exploring ideas of migration, belonging and freedom.
Maybe I can, sort of, see that now.
Sutrum was born in Mochudi, Botswana in 1980 Received her BA Highest Honors from the University of North Carolina; her MFA at the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2007. She is currently based in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Set designed by Remco Osorio Lobato
Also, out there now:
Dulwich Picture Gallery
Tirzah Garwood: Beyond Ravilious
19 Nov to 26 May 2025
This retrospective of Tirzah Garwood marks for the first time the full extent of her output. Best known as the wife of Eric Ravilious, Garwood excelled as a fine artist and printmaker. This is sure to be a rare opportunity to view more than eighty pieces of her work.
Included in the exhibition there are to be eleven – including water colours – pieces by Ravilious.
National Gallery
Discover Constable & The Hay Wain
Until 2 Feb 2025
The Sunley Room
Looking at how Constable’s contemporaries created rural scenes
Free to all visitors.
