It is an attempt to bring about polyphony to visual life so that each one can draw one’s own inference, by watching it on display in the gallery Artwalk
True to its literal meaning, Polyphonies in ‘Polyphonies in distance’ come alive in one-of-a-kind art exhibition in Dotwalk. ‘Polyphonies in Distance’ is an exhibition which includes paintings, sculptures, installations and new media works by some of the most celebrated contemporary artists along with some emerging contemporary artists from India.
Polyphony or the style of simultaneously combining a number of parts, each forming an individual melody and harmonizing with each other couldn’t have been better portrayed but by the works of 12 artists – Arpita Akhanda, Tahsin Akhtar, Veda Thozhur Kolleri, Ranbir Kaleka, Arunkumar HG, Deepanshu Joshi, Jagannath Panda, Pinaki Ranjan Mohanty, Julius Das, Unnikrishnan. C, Amjum Rizve and Sajith CN.
Polyphonies in Distance, is primarily interested in incorporating the idea of Distance and Passage of Time through different artistic practices and in their modes of artistic thinking. The exhibition, in that way is interested in, how a constellation of time and the idea of durationality can be produced through closeness as well as through separations and distant realities in different time and spaces.
Historically, artists have worked extensively with the idea of distance through their own artistic practices at different times as responses to the historical shifts in the past. At large, as an idea, distance as a conceptual choice and its distinct presence in the artistic practices have become immensely prevalent and equally critical in every phase of social change.
Similarly, the idea of distance and its relationships to memory, affect, events and imaginations are deeply rooted to the attributions in their reception through the subjective, inter-personal and collective consciousnesses. Passage of Time, as a theoretical understanding, is widely diverse to the current debates on placelessness and unallocated geographies. One of a precise choice of this curatorial proposition is to approach the idea of Distance as a strategic phenomenon to open new ways through which artistic inquiries, interventions and deliberations at multiple levels can unfold the relationship between the precarious present and altered future.
Polyphonies in Distance, is not only about gathering memories, events and aftermath as a tool to realize the affect, but also how the through the complexity of the present, one can unpack the dubious presence of distance, proximity and visibility in the real and virtual systems of living. The idea of the exhibition is extremely broad in terms of the sections of curatorial propositions are interested in. That way, the exhibition is a starting point to foreground propositional ideas to work further to create deeper and continuous engagements with the artistic concerns to expand the scope in research and in the subject matters.
Polyphonies in Distance as a curatorial idea, in that sense, predominately is to engage with prolonged histories, experiences and continuous encounters through various stretches of time with the lens of subjectivity at the core. Taking these ideas forward, the exhibition: Polyphonies in Distance, is a an attempt by Sibdas Gupta to re-visit some of the core concerns I have been interested in working with and crafting parallel and intersectional spaces to challenge as well as attempt to expand the accessibility to the existing artistic inquires. The sections of the exhibition is interested in bringing approaches of historical reenactments, philosophising the idea of ‘present- continuous’, propositions to ‘reverse-passage of time’ in various artistic production and questioning idea of self as part of collective extensions.
With such curatorial propositions, curator’s efforts have been to put light on the idea of artistic production and the conditions of various artistic production to be a part of the exhibition. The inquiry also is to create a curatorial space for opportunities to rise forms of criticality to the conditions of the post-artistic production and highlighting the propositions as forms of questioning. In those ways, the attempt of this exhibition is to be a culmination of generating upgraded paradigms to the idea of distance and their interdependencies by ‘questioning the critical’ from both the curatorial and artistic ends.