- Venue
- Studio X Mumbai
- Location
- India
?This is Now? is one of three non-commercial exhibitions on across the city of Mumbai, India, as a part of a collaborative venture between Asia Art Projects, India, and the 1%ers Art Collective, UK. The exhibition, which features the work of both Indian and UK based artists, presents a collection of works produced by a selection of the artists during a short residency period only one week prior to the exhibition opening. Located in Studio X Mumbai, an open space for collaborative work, research and exchange of ideas, run by Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation of Columbia University, the works produced for this show are responsive to the city of Mumbai and occupying spaces. Given the short residency time period, responsive nature of the project, and unusual location, the exhibition has evolved naturally to form an opened ended dialogue between the artists and artworks whilst uncovering an overriding sense of place throughout.
This spatial awareness is evident at once before even viewing the exhibition, simply finding Studio X is an exploration of the city and its spaces, seemingly hidden within a wonderful old decaying building, the Kitab Muhal, located in the heart Mumbai’s historic Fort area. The viewer must access the top floor of the building to find the exhibition space via a rickety old lift or by four flights of unpredictable wooden stairs which make up a beautiful but potentially dangerous staircase. Finding Studio X is definitely worth the effort as the viewer will un-expectantly uncover a beautiful bright, white space flooding with natural light from multiple windows housed within the Mumbai rooftops, which couldn’t be guessed upon entry to the building.
The space itself is the first secret of the exhibition and inside the artworks unconsciously seem to expose and unpick many other hidden elements, both of the building itself and its history, but also stories and cultural murmurs from the city. This takes effect upon entry to the gallery where the viewer is immediately presented with a collection of cultural references woven together on screen to form an almost dreamlike cinematic mesh of sound & moving image. Chris Cawkwell’s video installation, ?Trying to get to the Truth of this Fake Massive Dream?, transforms the room at once by engaging the viewer in a cinematic world exploring the continuously evolving relationship between India and the ?west?. As a foreign artist having visited India previously Cawkwell hints at the degree of westernisation evident from an outsider’s perspective within his video and the presentation of colliding worlds.
A sense of cultural merge is continued into the next room of the exhibition where the viewer suddenly finds themselves placed within a fully operating Furniture Company workshop. Here a staff of carpenters can be found between the hours of 10am ? 6pm creating beautifully crafted wooden pieces, from wardrobes, tables and chairs, to a variety of children’s toys. Stepping into this environment within Studio X gives the viewer the feeling of displacement, causing a double take, and re-examination of their surroundings. ?Art Making Workshop? is in fact a collaborative installation piece between artists Shreyas Karle, Paul Millhouse-Smith and Anna Schwanz, conceived upon discovering the existence of a Furniture Manufacturing Company in a hidden room just beyond Studio X’s entrance. The exposition of this unseen room and replacement within a gallery context explores the roles of the contemporary artist and artisan in both an Indian and European context and placement. The collaborative venture seeps into the core of the space with both the artists alongside the workers negotiating the objects and placement within the space both in terms of aesthetics and, conversely, functionality.
The revealing of hidden space within a building can also be found in the work of Charmi Gada Shah. A newly discovered secret staircase within floor boards of one room of Studio X, is exposed and houses the artists piece ?Still Life of a Landscape?. This installation made up of hundreds of tiny handmade porcelain bricks depicts a miniature familiar landscape which encapsulates a sense of India’s deteriorating cities. Installed within the shadowy spaces of the staircase, the scale of this piece asks the viewer to interact spatially with the building as one must get down on their knees to view or even must descend the darkened staircase to engage with the piece fully, and to become transported to the fictionalised world Gada Shah is at the same time presenting us with. The piece explores both the architecture of the building within its site specific placing and also a sense of the imagined or remembered place which can haunt or equally become entwined within memory.
The paintings of Sam Etchell, too engage the viewer in both the space of the building and also outside worlds. ?The End of Summer?, a painting depicting a hazy rooftop scene, mimics the surrounding window views throughout Studio X. However on further investigation the viewer will discover that the painting actually shows a view painted in Loughborough, UK, from the artist’s top floor flat. The placing of this piece in the space leads the viewer to dissect the relationship between the two differing places. This sense of the dissection of place is examined further in another painting by Etchell, ?Untitled?, a work still in progress, displaying a view looking out over Mumbai from a high end bar. The formal composition of this piece is pleasing to the eye, but more than that, it poses questions surrounding the cities landscape and jarring architectural and social elements. The positioning of both paintings within the building plays with the function of a window as a viewing point and the idea of art too functioning as a window to different place, as we explore the artists own view of the world, we are left to project our own conclusions.
The work of Emma Gamble can be observed through the adjacent window. Her text installation consisting of perfectly bold white letters reading ?This Message is a Sign from Above? is suspended within the rooftops, forming a new part of the cities landscape from this unique view point. Lit at night and towering before the viewer the piece has an almost heavenly aura, however, remaining open ended in its reading, the individual viewer’s interpretation prevails. The piece determines that the power of text is still eminent and simultaneously references a past history of the space as an advertising agency, a secret of the space’s history discovered during installation.
The works and artists on display in this exhibition are clearly all very different, in terms of medium, style and content; however they are unconsciously linked by an overriding sense of place, whether that is the site-specific, responsive, literal or even imagined. Connected by these defining threads ?This is Now? examines how location can influence and determine an exhibition and at the same time presents a new architectural mapping of the space of Studio X within the city of Mumbai. This is a map which reflects upon the present moment and the city’s continual evolution, exploring both the internal and the external space, whilst intervening, juxtaposing and repositioning, scratching beneath the surface the artists seek to get to the core of a place.
?This is Now? curated by Allan Binns was on at Studio X from November 25th ? December 8th 2011 as part of Project India.
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