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SharePrajjwal Choudhury's war against the consumerist attitude of society is seen in his debut show, Drift. Francis H D'Sa takes a look ...and then another
My works defy the academic definition of 'sculpture'. I seek to locate the consumerist attitude of society in the way I construct and build up my 'images'," says young Prajjwal Choudhury about Drift, his debut show of 'artistic explorations', as he calls them.
It is obvious that Choudhury is at war with the way in which everyday objects taken for granted and so easily discarded. It is these objects -- the discarded matchbox, the plastic bottle, letters of the alphabet -- that he makes art that force you to take a second, then a third look.
The works are broadly in two categories where the material is explored thematically. In the first, the basic forms of the bottle and the matchbox are used in two series: Nothing Endures but Change and To be Continued... These objects are mass produced, used and discarded -- it is here that Choudhury begins creation.
Large frames (6.5 sq ft) are filled with matchboxes and bottles whose visual appeal is realistic, but with a twist, deceiving the onlooker. "I make an intervention by pasting on indistinguishable matchboxes and bottles, works of art by famous artists." Choudhury has manufactured about 60,000 matchboxes and 7,000 bottles on which he has printed (on archival paper) the works of Andy Warhol, Picasso, Damien Hirst, Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dali, Dhruva Mistry, Jitish Kallat, Subodh Gupta and Atul Dodiya.
He has repeated 250 individual images, the spaces between peppered with witty dialogues like What will you do with the box if there is no stick, Be enlightened and you will remain after the last stick and Whatever you are, you will be thrown out with the last stick. Side views of the boxes also become demarcations. A little Dadaism, a touch of surrealism, a lot of Prajjwal Choudhury. From a different perspective, these miniature objects, painstakingly placed with weightage given to colour, form words of their own: 'art' and 'peace'.
The 'bottle series', or Nothing endures but change, consists of three panel paintings encased in glass (7 x 3 ft) in which over 1,000 bottles have been used. Here, too, works of well-known artists are reproduced and society ridiculed.
The matchboxes and the bottles acquire textured meanings that allow the onlooker to drift into the transitory nature of consumerist society, the artist explains. "I reconstruct these objects as novelties, resulting in an interpreted version of reality."
Instead of, the second category, consists of three sculptures or 'artistic explorations', as Choudhury calls them. "I have used the letters of the alphabet to give a visual feel, instead of the basic purpose that letters are used for." He has cut 20,000 letters of the alphabet out of wood, highly finished and lacquered, and used in layers, one upon the other, on The Sofa, Standing Figure and Self Portrait. The sofa seems soft, inviting you to sit down and look at the rest of the show....but the wood is hard. The letters are jumbled, seemingly pasted on at random. Each gives Self Portrait an astonishing depth and shade. There are three layers, together weighing about 150 kg.
Choudhury's planular understanding and the preceding and receding masses of light and shade are masterfully channeled. There is pointillism of sorts, a stripping down of the English language to its barest minimum, just as Georges Seurat reduced painting to its smallest element: the dot. The surface is highly texturised and jumbled, like frail human sensibilities.
Get the drift?
Drift, Project 88, till June 28
