Role of a Curator_ India Art Practices

8/18/2019 Role of a Curator_ India Art Practices

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works that spoke of angst and pain and struggles and the joy of

creating drew visitors into their maw.

Pandit’s works reminded one of Picasso’s Guernica. These aredark bronzes-they are expressive islands of deepened tenors not

beautiful attractive works. Their intensity and depth unveils

struggles and tribulations and keeps you thinking.

Amit Gupta, director of Vis a Vis Lights had come to create pitch

perfect renditions of lightings to lift the bronzes into designspatialities of ultimate professionalism. Artist and installation expert

Puneet Kaushik had spent the whole day displaying an designing

the stances of poised sculptures on pedestals. The foyer at the Lalit

Kala morphed into a wonderland. Both these individuals had come

to lend a hand and help Pandit. No money was taken or spoken of.

It reflected the strength of a relationship and their love for great art.

This is far away from greedy gallery practices that have destroyed

of a curator: India art practices about:reader?url=http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-editorial...

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the art market and left artists with dead stock in their homes and

studios. An English artist walked in asked me what I felt was the

role of a curator.

I thought about it and realized that the role of a curator has

changed somewhat over the past decade. Other than providing a

strong logical structure which provides the skeleton of the

installation/sculptures/paintings –a curator’s role is one that

strengthens the relationship of the artist of his/her creations in the

studio, the level and the scale and quality of the images, thedarkness of the journey and the duration of the creation of the

works .

As a curator who brings works to the public domain the threading of

the show and the translation of ideas and sensibility must

guarantee its own success and guarantee the identity of the works

– the identity is built into the elements in its physicality, so it’s a

coherent consistent choreography of sorts.


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Pandit started thinking about his show 6 months ago, he has taken

5 years to create this body-he also knew that it was the display that

would allow for different degrees of interpretation. One could argue

that the role of those displaying the works is to present “the work”

accurately and the role of interpretation is to endeavor tounderstand what that means for any given “work”. In working with

artists you find a variety of views and arts of display. Some artists

want to limit the influence of those displaying the work and others

directly invite the involvement of someone like Puneet Kaushik who

has an intuitive understanding of display spatialities.

Visitors to Pandit’s Power and Pathos may be slightly overwhelmed

by the pieces – by the scale and monumentality as much as by the

fact that bronze is a challenging medium to work in. However, there

is an everyday familiarity about these works – something that the

viewers can relate to, and which acts as a ‘way in’ to the work: thisis an important key to inviting a viewer’s response. Added to this, is

the fact that the sculptures have a surreal, tensile quality. This is


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immediately engaging in that it makes the foyer at the Lalit Kala

Akademi appear as if it is being seen through different spots of

lighting , providing an intriguing sense of the voyeuristic

expressionist – a privileged view into the artist’s domain.

While the Lalit Kala has exceptional lights it required Amit Gupta of

Vis a Vis to come in and tweak the intensities into pitch perfect

patterns that would expand the luminosity in degrees without

scattering it. The space also creates a viewing environment which

reads like a real space, helping to contextualize the sculptural

works for the viewer.


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The role of the curator is multifold-but discovering great artists

doing wonderful work and giving them a platform in which to create

their own identities is indeed a satiating experience. Curating solo

showings and helping young talent becomes an essential need so

that artists can enter markets and keep creating. Facilitating the

buyers and artists to meet at a confluence of creative

understanding becomes paramount for any artist to take his art

practice forward. Curating a show is like understanding the

nuances of a wind that visits a forest. Every few years, it shakes the

forest, unveils hidden truths, gives new strength and light to new

sprouts, showing older trunks and persisting branches from a

different perspective. The role of a curator is one that unravels an

academic and aesthetic pilgrimage, where in the works of artists

and the work of curator the voices of the visual and verbal worlds

meet, to talk about how the past can be brought forward to the

present. Curating is a research filled exercise that forms the fulcrumof an academic and scholarly evolution. Curating is a privilege that

is founded on hard work and tenuous hours of research. It is also


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an indispensable tool that serves society in myriad ways.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.


Role of a Curator_ India Art Practices

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