A woolly cocoon encrusted in crystals and stones adorns a wall. A preternatural pillar guards another. In between, stand bronze men with lunar bodies and no heads, still living and breathing. No, this isn’t a scene from a sci-fi movie, though if the selection on display is anything to go by, it’s every bit as theatrical. Welcome to Currents, a salon series and the maiden Hyderabad outpost of New York-born, New Delhi-based art gallery Nature Morte, unveiled in collaboration with Hetero Pharma Group on August 9th. The exhibition, which will remain on view until August 18th, sweeps across the gamut of fashion, design, music and culture, leaving you to wonder where—or whether—one discipline ends and another begins.
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With artworks and collectible design pieces by contemporary names such as Bharti Kher, Jitish Kallat, Subodh Gupta, Ashiesh Shah and Bloni, along with works by modern masters including SH Raza and MF Hussain, this new art show in Hyderabad is an illusory dreamscape that levitates above worldly trappings, illuminating the changing contours of visual culture in South Asia today. “It is important that contemporary art starts to move out of Delhi and Mumbai, engaging with the vast audiences found in India’s secondary and tertiary cities,” says Peter Nagy, co-director at Nature Morte. The gallery’s Hyderabad pop-up is the latest in a series of art debuts in the City of Pearls, following events like the India Art Festival, which expanded to Hyderabad in June after a fourteen-year stronghold in Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru.
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Some might say the exhibition begins outside. After all, the compound it inhabits—a forthcoming retail section on the ground floor of the Hetero offices in the RMZ Nexity corporate park—is noted for its public art programme, featuring monumental works by artists like Manish Nai and Manisha Parekh. These pieces set the stage for the artworks inside, which compose paintings, installations and sculptures, yes, but also fashion- and design-inspired curiosities that masquerade as art. Think a fully embroidered black bead jacket with moulded metal shoulder pads designed by Bloni for Karan Johar, or a tactile Lorenzo Vitturi wall installation. They are at once easy and experimental, complementary yet contrasting, independent while contributing to a cohesive whole.
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At the entrance, divine pillars, or stambhs, by Ashiesh Shah—one paying homage to the town of Channapatna and another to the art of Dhokra—stand sentinel next to a sea anemone-like, agate-and-pure-silver corset by Bloni that seems like it could have been excavated from the briny deep. (That it’s actually made of volcanic rock delivers a lesson in paradoxes.) “In our practice, we do not like to be confined by rigid categorisations of art, design or architecture,” says Shah, an impassioned craft revivalist. “By infusing our vision and sensibilities into traditional styles, we aim to create contemporary, timeless objects that can be appreciated even a hundred years from now.” Akshat Bansal of Bloni concurs. “It was exciting to explore naturally occurring uncut stones and crystals and working with tie-and-dye, a heritage craft that I have been working with for years now,” says the maverick designer, whose calling card has long been embracing naturally occurring materials. “I’ve always been guided by one question: if I were left alone on this planet, could I still create something beautiful?”
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The interior is a portal to another realm. Sublimed into themed sections—respectively christened Cosmic Gardens of Our Time, Within the Measure of a Day, Manipulated Materialities, Looking Within and Looking Ahead—it exists as a five-part cosmos, each part playing host to a galaxy of kindred art. The underlying query for curators and artists alike is: in a world where borders, both political and linguistic, are as permeable as they are encompassing, who owns the idea of art?
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If a painting by Jiten Thukral and Sumir Tagra is any indication, the answer to that question would be no one. Dreamed up during the pandemic, when ‘tomorrow’ was an enigma, the peach-coloured opus, centred on an undulating ping pong table, suggests a future shrouded in uncertainty. A chronotope fashioned with ghungroos by conceptual artist Vibha Galhotra speaks of a similar fate, alluding to the perils of global warming, and more specifically, ocean health, while sculptures by visual artist LN Tallur, made from reclaimed Chola-era bronze and punctured with moon-like holes, hark back to forgotten traditions. A work by Bharti Kher, abloom with the artist’s signature bindi formations, serves as a silent prompt to slow the clock.
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Aparajita Jain, co-director at Nature Morte, collaborated with Anvida Reddy, chief patron of Hetero Pharma Group and a devoted art collector, to invite a group of distinguished women leaders across philanthropy, healthcare and contemporary art, for the opening event on August 9th, part of whose proceeds will be donated to a cancer charity. The list included Sudha Reddy, patron of the Sudha Reddy Foundation; Dr. Reddy’s scion Sanjana Reddy; Shalini Bhupal, director of Taj GVK hotels; and Dr. Jallachari Ella, director of Bharat Biotech.
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Styled by Samar Rajput, the women glided around the gallery space in futuristic saris and corsets conceived from Bansal’s mind, which combined his time-honoured engineered tie-and-dye system with a technique of uncut stone embellishment, reflecting Bloni’s art-meets-fashion Weltanschauung. Bansal considers Breathing Cocoon, a biomorphic wearable object made of metal, wool, agate and gemstones, donned by Sudha Reddy, to be the evening’s crown jewel. “The piece looks like it’s in motion,” he avers. But the design’s significance goes beyond its aesthetics: it belongs as much on one’s body as it does in a living room, an artistic expression echoing the designer’s belief that objects should be fluid, whether across gender, space or function. In Bansal’s world, there no rules.
‘Currents’, an ongoing art show in Hyderabad, is on view until Sunday, 18th August 2024, from 10 AM to 8 PM, at Ground Floor, Hetero – Tower 30, RMZ Nexity
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