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METROSCAPE
A Mayor Tourist
Kolkata Mayor Subrata
Mukherjee is a man about town. Literally. Last week, Mukherjee went sightseeing
all over the city, doing touristy things like visiting an interactive
museum on the history of Bengal, riding the Metro Rail, taking a cruise
down the Hoogly river, having a typical Bengali meal at the Peerless Inn
and visiting theme parks. "I've been a resident of the city since
1970, but I never got a chance to do any of this," Mukherjee confessed.
Accompanying the First Citizen on his jaunt was his extended family-a
bunch of deputies, councillors and other hangers-on.
 Carpers
also went to town, criticising the drain on the taxpayers' money (Rs 2
lakh, at a generous estimate). But Mukherjee is unfazed. "I have
seen the governors of Singapore, Bangkok, Japan and other south-east Asian
countries go on regular trips around the city," he says. "It's
a good thing if you want to bond with the people." Sure. Now the
people would love some results.
—Labonita Ghosh
Couple Of Strokes
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| Nair's Parable of
the Swine |
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Rodwittiya with her Imagined Spaces
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Rekha Rodwittiya's
obsession is with the female form, usually those that have vaginas that
curl like threads, body fluids that turn into a spaghetti of stems and
flowers and wombs/stomachs that are red with heat. The images appear to
deal with the dangers of being overtly sexual as well as the pitfalls
of being too little-like you can never know how suggestive a flower like
anthurium can be. Nice ... but what about more things we haven't seen
already?
Surendran Nair, Rodwittiya's husband, also showing
in Delhi's Art Inc. has tried something a little different-swans that
mutate into humans, as do elephants, sharks and horses. Drawing largely
from Greek parables and mythology ( resembling the works of Surrealists
and the Italian transavantguardists), Nairs's male-centric compositions
are about tradition, modernity and religion, as also about sexuality and
arousal. He likes flowers too ... his favourite is the lotus.
—Anshul Avijit
Buildres Of Art
Mumbai's Cymroza
Art Gallery made an honest bid at experimentation when 11 pairs of architects
and artists were invited to work together to "bridge the gap between
art forms". The upshot: Ratan Batliboi and Sunil Gawde's "No
Funda Only Anda", an eggy structure balancing one steel tabletop
over another; husband-wife duo Alfaz and Brinda Chudasama Miller's cupboard
and baby desk embedded with crayons and Arzan and Rusi Khambatta's manipulations
with iron and wood. Some participants like architect Haresh Shah gave
lengthy discourses on their works, while others like Arzan succintly said,
"It's just aesthetics, nothing more." Every one heard him.
—Natasha Israni
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