Urban-rural juxtaposition

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There is a rising restlessness and anxiety amongst the intellectual chatterati about fractured identities within urban and rural ‘Indias’, emphasising the economic divide rather than the cultural plurality. The focus on city as the constitutive other of the rural/peasant/simple/exploited India can be seen not only in the media but also in the visual discourse. The city is the site of complexity, materially and experientially; crowded, loud, crime ridden, corrupt, exploitative-evil and divisive, the socio-political backdrop provides a rich thematic expanse to younger artists. The recent show Divers-Cities at Latitude 28 tends to highlight this.
One of the artists who brings out all the aspirational, upwardly mobile, consumerist, middle class world in a rather ‘Madame Bovary meets television reality’ show way is Roshan Chhabria. Using jesso and other materials, Prarjakta Palav has created a series of works called Jello with Nuts based she says on the idea of marriage pandals in Mumbai. The dominant effect in these series is their sheer redness and loudness, in fact the noise of the pandals has been amplified in her works.
Gigi Scaria’s Icarus — Yet Another Attempt reinterprets the Icarian myth of the over-reacher/non-conformist against the aegis of a diminutive urban landscape set in juxtaposition with a waste-land like expanse. The lone figure atop a precariously erected structure seems to reach for the sun/perfection. The quest seems doomed, and yet heroic.
One of the artists whose work on display works as a counter narrative is Manjunath Kamath. Compositionally and thematically it a simple work, a series of vertically aligned shelves of potted plants, a ubiquitous urban device that gives some green relief to the grey concrete landscapes. Sarnath Banerjee’s ode to detective graphic strips Lalbazaar Detective Department with the inherent host of plot twists and characters literally gives comic relief to an angst and anxiety driven visual world.