Review
Art South Asia
Venues across north west England
The University of Liverpool Art Gallery is tucked away in a nineteenth century terraced house in Abercromby Square. It is an unassuming home to a fascinating, eclectic collection of paintings, prints, drawings, porcelain, clocks and silverware. Infiltrating the treasure trove lie a series of subtle yet provocative challenges by contemporary artists from Sri Lanka.
In an upstairs room filled with sixteenth century Russian icons sits another collection of portable deity – Bandu Manamperi's Instant Nirvana (PVT) Ltd, mass-produced plaster cast statuettes of the Buddha. Painted neon, wrapped in cellophane and price tagged – though the price is omitted – they sit in a display case, reducing the venerated Buddha to a number of chipped, kitsch souvenirs of the tourist trade, confronting the prejudices that persist in representing South Asian culture in intractable stereotypes of the exotic.
Manamperi's work forms part of Art South Asia, a major festival of contemporary art exhibited in venues across the north west of England. This ambitious event includes work by fifty-six artists, residencies and an international symposium and has been organised by the Manchester-based agency Shisha, working with an international mix of curators and artists with the aim of providing a greater understanding of South Asian visual culture.
The breadth and scope of the project is vast. Four distinct exhibitions reflect the culture of the subcontinent in all its diversity and multiplicity. The work does not shy from contemporary realities, the spectre of war, internal conflicts, economic hardships, nor does it wince from tackling colonialism, globalisation and the new political complexities post 11 September.
The shows present contemporary art alongside rural, folk, tribal and popular forms acknowledging the debt each owes the other and eschewing the tired hierarchies of high and low art.
In 'Threads, Dreams, Desires: Contemporary Art from Pakistan' at the Harris Museum, artist Ruby Chishti's comic-strip buffalo, formed from re-cycled fabric filled with straw, sits back against the wall, spread-eagled and exhausted, mouth gaping – abject. Titled The giving end, the work is a poignant metaphor that bears out Chair of Shisha, Dr Jacques Rangasamy's assertion that "the forces and processes proper to survival [are] holy in the deepest possible sense". Naiza Khan's contribution Henna hands is a series of site-specific wall drawings created in the streets of Karachi. The incomplete silhouetted human figures drawn directly onto crumbling walls contend with graffiti and torn fragments from cigarette ads. The elegant figures exhibit a life affirming dignity re-enforced by their delicately made, tactile beauty.
In 'Shikor O Phool (Roots and Blossom), Contemporary Art of Bangladesh', at Gallery Oldham, Shishir Battacharjee, an artist and political cartoonist, exhibits acidic pop paintings. The paintings are peopled by a fantastic array of gun-toting burlesques, drawing upon Bengali film posters – heroes and villains – in mordant and ironic bad taste.
Manchester Art Gallery's 'Home-Street-Shrine-Bazaar-Museum', the largest of the shows, examines the primary sites of Indian visual culture. Atul Dodiya's museum display cases of skeletal remains, prosthetics, padlocks, and framed prints are a potent reminder of turmoil and adversity. Pushpamala N's photo-fictions offer a site for escape. The hand-tinted images, in which the artist enacts heart-stopping dramas, have a charm and lightness of touch. This is the stuff of fantasy and daydreams.
Art South Asia is a major achievement brimming with work that is vital and challenging, poetic and powerful; works that pack an emotional punch. It's art on a human scale, filled with empathy, sharing the dreams and aspirations of the audience for whom it was made. It demands of its UK audience that we reassess our attitudes and re-engage with the art of South Asia.
Brendan Fletcher
BRENDAN FLETCHER
is an artist & lecturer based in Manchester.
First published: a-n Magazine September 2002
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