Deriving inspiration from Buddhist philosophies, internal landscapes, dynamism of shades and shadows and rhythms of nature, ceramic artists bring together Breaking Ground. By Uma Nair
The high priestess of Indian contemporary art, Pooja Sood, has breathed new life into Jaipur’s Jawahar Kala Kendra with her expertise and her keen eye for the original. The first Indian Ceramic Triennale: Breaking Ground is one such endeavour. The show had some hits and misses in terms of artists selected and the works they installed. If the brick installation under the dome with eyes was deeply disappointing, it was Vipul Kumar’s installation of Nature’s Signature with the light falling on its contours that invited you for a deeper reckoning of the master and guru Ray Meeker. While looking at the show it seemed as if it was important and vital to look at three works by Ray Meeker and two curators of the Triennale — Vineet Kacker and Madhavi Subramaniam. Because the role and impact of curators magnify when they are also participants of an epic venture such as this.
Ray Meeker
In the centre of the small courtyard strategically placed by the design genius Peter Nagy, who knows all about design dynamics, Ray Meeker’s Rio Stela: America First!, a stoneware obelisk, is a critique of the United States’ stance at the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit in 1992. Porous and full of succinct structural marks and undulations, this tall pyramidal installation harks us back to the Mesopotamian civilisations and brings us forward into the marvellous paradigms of textures and tonality and the materiality of minerals. The work testifies Meeker’s gravitas, his understanding of both balancing firing techniques and creating maximal impact with the spatial dictates that he creates with years of experience behind him.
Vineet Kacker
Vineet Kacker’s Endless Landscape is inspired by his travels through the high Himalayan regions, as well as a personal engagement with Eastern spiritual thought. Over the years, Kacker has used Buddhist imagery and philosophy to create works in the meditative mould. Endless Landscape draws upon a sense of self experiencing when walking through the mountains and encountering the mystical, magical and timeless. The sense of unending vastness perceived on the external plane intuitively reveals the same within oneself, altering indelibly the internal landscape. Two parallel series of landscapes, evocative of summer and winter, refer to the cyclical in nature. As one walks closer towards them, the endless reflections draw the viewer into the terrain of folded undulations that seem to flow in lithe lyrical lines.
Madhavi Subramaniam
While you gaze at the minimalist mood of Vineet Kacker’s works you are drawn into the maw of Madhavi Subramaniam’s installation that echoes the vitality of understanding both materials as well as the dynamism of playing with the shades and shadows of viscerality. Subramaniam stands in her own stead, on her own accord for her felicity with small as well as intriguing intricacies that detail the dialectics of design. While the two walls facing each other give us an ephemeral elegance of the Forest of Shadows, it is the alchemy of the three walls that speak to us about the environment, about the man made as well as the transitory nature of what is real as well as virtual.
Hoshino Satoru
Among the international artists was the installation of Japanese artist Hoshino Satoru that enchanted for its ability to translate into a landscape with the language of ceramics as an incantation of ideologues. In an interview, Satoru said, “I engage in a dialogue with the clay as it sits in from of me, as a soft, flexible lump of matter. This dialogue is carried out through a form of body language: the primitive action of pressing parts of my body (my fingers) against the body of the clay... This is not a relationship in which I am active and the clay is passive, even if I am the first to speak, the dialogue can only take place if I empathise with the material, adjusting myself to the time contained in the clay and the rhythms of nature.”
Hoshino has created a large scale installation that fills an entire wall. A curious concentric circled urn like structure sits in the foreground while a stupendous spiral sits as if in a trance on the wall. It’s as if the installation invites us to look at the engagement of man and his environment, and also talks to us about the power of mortality in myriad ways. Hoshino reflects the power of repetition but with a contemplative aura — He is the role model example of a modern ceramicist. The beauty of this installation is that it is open-ended, born of inner rhythms of sorrow as well as an understanding of what is raw and natural, with an emphasis on the essence of clay and its earthy origins. The success of this brilliant creation is that it points to the tenor of quiet contemplation while it exhibits a sense of tensile and tactile simplicity.