LOOKING GLASS
Go Mumbai: Art There were sniggers even
before the ethnic-slick preview in Delhi last week. Satish Gupta's etched canvases, The
Eyes of the Thar, is to show at the Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai (Jan 5-12). Inference:
here, you hire to show, you aren't invited. If an artist can have the last laugh, Gupta
will. When the show opens, most of the two dozen or so recent canvases will have red dots
on them. That isn't to say this series by the artist-sculptor-designer-Zen devotee is
divine. The works mix kitsch with kinetic energy. Sometimes the eyes that look at you from
the canvas are mere poster art, pinpoints married with lazy detail. Others arrest and draw
you in to the havelis and desert sands. That is hypnotic.
There were sniggers even
before the ethnic-slick preview in Delhi last week. Satish Gupta's etched canvases, The
Eyes of the Thar, is to show at the Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai (Jan 5-12). Inference:
here, you hire to show, you aren't invited. If an artist can have the last laugh, Gupta
will. When the show opens, most of the two dozen or so recent canvases will have red dots
on them. That isn't to say this series by the artist-sculptor-designer-Zen devotee is
divine. The works mix kitsch with kinetic energy. Sometimes the eyes that look at you from
the canvas are mere poster art, pinpoints married with lazy detail. Others arrest and draw
you in to the havelis and desert sands. That is hypnotic.