Art Bull's latest exhibition presents rare masterpieces of the age-old Delhi Shilpi Chakra Group. Iknoor Kaur spoke to the organiser
When Kiran Mohan and her team at Art Bull decided to bring back the works of the Delhi Shilpi Chakra Group in their exhibition Re-wheeling the Chakra, they knew it was going to be a rigorous investigative task. “This group exists today for namesake. So, the real job was tracking down artists who were associated with the group. First of all we needed corporation from the families of the artists who were members of this team. The problem that came up was that most of the artists or their families didn’t want to sell their work. There was so much of emotional involvement. So, then we decided to chase people to at least give us copies of the work. Rajesh Mehra who is an active member of the group said he didn’t want to sell his work, but gave us a copy of the only piece he ever sold. Things starting falling in place post that,” shared Kiran.
Founded in 1949, the Delhi Shilpi Chakra Group was a significant contributor to the new art scene in the city. While modern styles seeped in, the group conducted regular exhibitions, discussions, talks and active interactions in creative art fields of visual arts, literature and music. Kiran elaborated, “This was one of the groups that always remained silent. It was active and had a lot of participants even from lahore. The group would give out paintings on rent like how we would take books from the library, these people gave out their works for rentals of Rs 10 a month. Then if the person liked the art piece, he or she would buy it and the Rs 10 as rent would get adjusted in the cost of the painting. So, it was a very chilled out, free and interactive environment. In fact, the members of the group called it their adda.”
A few of the members of Delhi Shilpi Group boast of the legacy they left behind. “Keshav Malik, curator and catalogue writer of the exhibition, was a close associate and member of the group. He helped tremendously in putting up the show,” said Kiran.
Apart from getting to the members of the group there were a lot of challenges that Kiran and her team faced. She explained, “A lot of families were based abroad and it was almost impossible to get in touch with them. Even if we managed to get in touch there was no way they were going to give us the paintings without meeting us personally. So the whole process was elongated. Then the main challenge came after we got some of the art work. The work was so delicate that it was not an easy task to handle it at all.”
The exhibition showcases the works of artists like Anupam Sud, Devayani Krishna, Dhanraj Bhagat, Rajesh Mehra, Surendra Chopra and Umesh Chandra Varma. “The highlight of this show is that there are few artworks that were showcased in the first exhibition held by the Delhi Shilpi Chakra. Then we have a lot of works from the year 1959 onwards. We also have the copy of the only publication that was ever taken out from the time the group existed,” she said.
The show will be on at Art Bull from October 27 to November 15.