Artist Gigi Scaria walks Chahak Mittal through an exhibition of sculptures that urges the human civilisation to look beyond itself and at the destruction that man’s actions are causing to the world
Who is an ideal superman? Why has it always been a man-centric world? Don’t we need to consider other perspectives than that of the human to view this cosmos? Defying Friedrich Nietzsche’s theory of a superman, artist Gigi Scaria brings together sculptures that remind one of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. “When one thinks about a superhuman, one shouldn’t go beyond Christ,” says Scaria. He believes that our bodies are a bridge between the animal and the Nietzschean superman. And Christ is the process of that elevation.
Christ, who faced a lot of troubles in his life and yet remained a very humble person throughout, is an ideal man for Scaria. “A man could go weak, but can go higher to control everything if he wishes to and without even causing any harm to any other being,” says Scaria.
The exhibition of sculptures, paintings and video works, titled Ecce Homo: Behold the Man or How One Become What One is, is taken from German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s final book. The philosopher believed that a superhuman has the ability to conquer through all the challenges he is going through. However, Scaria questions, “One can have everything s/he wants but at what cost?” There could be consequences that a man could go through and suffer while following the Nietzschean model.
History has inhabited various versions of man yet we stand at the cusp of time anticipating a post-human cyborg in the future.
The sculpture, Hesitant Attempt, shows Icarus, a Greek mythological character, standing at the top of various crooked urbanised structures like buildings and broken homes with wings on his shoulders. Icarus was known to be the creator of the labyrinth. His wings signify a “labyrinth of possibilities” that life could be if seen through the perspectives of beings other than just humans.
While one bronze sculpture takes two to three months to be prepared completely, Scaria reveals that the biggest one, Human Pull, took approximately five months to be finished.
Another sculpture titled Fall shows a man lying on a mattress that, as per Scaria, shows the “unsettled” plight of a human today. “It is a mattress, the surface of which shows the instability of the human race as it is always in a hurry, packing their bags every now and then,” says the artiste.
His sculpture Ringa Ringa Roses would remind someone of the famous nursery rhyme, but to Scaria, it reminds him of the brutalities of World War II and the plague that hit Europe during the time, taking numerous lives. The sculpture shows women holding hands and standing in a circle, who are all “Indian women supporting each other during difficulties.”
Striking a symbolism through images and commenting on the urban lives, Conviction is a set of three drawings that shows the torso of a man resembling the torso of Hindu deity Hanuman who split his chest open to show an image of Ram residing inside his heart. However, Scaria’s drawings interpret the torso that doesn’t show Ram, rather buttons of play, pause and play on the three chests. The drawings remind one of the urban life that is ruled by the internet and social media.
A video Disclaimer was inspired by the news of the recent lynchings. In it the magician is playing Three Cup Shuffle in which one places different objects under different bowls and the viewer has to guess what is placed underneath each as the bowls are shuffled. “I made the video in such a way that it seems it is the magician who is doing all these tricks,” says Scaria.
His small sculptures are placed on the walls. “I knew that I wanted sculptures but on the walls of a gallery because it is the high-relief style that I really like,” says Scaria.
The bronze sculpture titled Human Pull displays the figure of a man with one wing. Scaria says, “Human beings do so much effort to reach the top but what if they find nothing at the top. They are sometimes just trying to grasp the emptiness. All these ideas are my own anxieties and my personal issues which are actually reflecting through images.”
Scaria’s works embody the existential angst about the future of human body and humanity at large.
(The show is on display till November 24 at Vadehra Art Gallery.)