THE
IMPRINT OF THE INSTINCT(art review)
M F Husain and Vijay Shinde are together in an exhibition for
the first time. It is not designed to be a display of a ‘guru-shishya
parampara’, nor is it a mirroring of the younger artist work of
the older. 
Both painters are linked by a continuous pre-occupation with the
quality of vehemence that draws electric currents from figure and
form and the tableau composition.
Driving home a correspondence between the two need not be forced
upon the spectator. It is important however to perceive the nature
of artistic resource and visual material that go into the theatre
of violence, the elemental truth of birth and decay that is opened
up by two artists, ’Violence’ by M F Husain and another ‘Untitled’
by Vijay Shinde.
REVIEW: If you have read Norman Mailer’s ‘Naked
& the Dead’- you are confronted with a sense of horror and
fear- when raw unabated violence is unleashed. The book was about
the futility of war, as was Picasso’s great anti –war painting,
‘Guernica.’
 For
me Husain’s 40ft monumental saga on violence might well be one of
his greatest works- a work of truly staggering proportions. In the
late 70’s he produced a series of works called the ‘Silence of Cyclone.’
15 years later in 1992 he would produce in eight parts a strong
indictment of violence.
If the Cyclone and Violence series were all that he ever did, Husain
would find his place in history. He would not even need ‘The Spider
and the Lamp.’
It would be madness and yet I feel in some way within the narrow confines
of Gallery 7, the dark and nightmarish work might be seen to its best
advantage. It surrounds , engulfs and chokes you creating an atmosphere
of tension, claustrophobia and oppression –suffocating you.
And you do one of the three things:
You either shut the door, bolt it , lock it up and sit in a corner
crouched with fear.
Or you take a gun and shoot these scumbags
Or what is more likely, you look at the Husain painting and say, “What
a great work of art.”
And then you go home.
Feeling slightly sheepish.
Vijay Shinde has invested his abstracts in the past with a fury and
madness much like Husain or Jackson Pollock.
In this series however he has stood on the opposite side of the spectrum
from Husain.
Husain has shown the threat of violence, Vijay the power of peace.
One chooses black, the other white.
Husain underscores violence with a red; the red of blood. Vijay chooses
the red on the forehead of the deities.
Husain’s is the angst of the real world. Vijay Shinde ‘s Utopia is
of an imagined world.
Pics Courtesy: Gallery7
Festival of Contemporary Art.
By: Latika Sidana |
