Connecting Threads: Exhibition traces textile histories and practices in contemporary Indian art
Juxtaposed with the textile collection at Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum, the exhibition re-looks at the narratives invoked by a range of contemporary artists.
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Anita Dube’s ‘Ah (a sigh)’ (left); ‘Silence (Blood Wedding)’, 1999, Bones covered in red velvet with beading and lace. From the collection of Devi Art Foundation (centre); and Pushpamalan N’s ‘Triptych’ from the Bombay Photo Studio series (right). It is one of the installations at Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum’s latest exhibition titled ‘Connecting Threads: Textiles in Contemporary Practice’, curated by Tasneem Zakaria Mehta and Puja Vaish. All Image Courtesy: Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai
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Installation view of Manish Nai’s ‘Untitled I-VIII’, 2018, Used clothes and wood.
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Installation view of Anju Dodiya’s ‘Ignition’, 2018, Charcoal and watercolour on fabric.
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Installation view of Desmond Lazaro’s ‘Promise: The Family Portraits’, 2016, Installation with hanging cloth, video and icon with gilded gold leaf.
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Desmond Lazaro’s ‘Promise: The Family Portraits’. The narratives of textile embrace the early categorizations of art, decorative arts, craft and design. It also refers to the critiques of exclusions in mainstream art history of the modern period, of creative practices that had been traditionally limited to women such as embroidery, mending, stitching etc that were associated with the domestic/private space.
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Installation view of Shezad Dawood’s ‘Point and I will follow’ (left), ‘Melnikov AA’ (top right) and ‘Melnikov BB’ (bottom right)
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Installation view of Sharmila Samant’s ‘Bombay Weaves’, 2018, Handloom, 50 spindles. Textiles both as practice and form are inextricably linked to complex histories of legitimation and hegemony, colonial trade, industry, and the freedom movement. It defines culture through the relationship between body and cloth, selfhood, attires and identities and fashion.
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Installation view of Sharmila Samant’s ‘A Factory-made Saree’, 2006, Bottle caps and metal shackles.
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Installation view of Reena Kalla’s ‘Walls of the Womb’, 2007, Tied-and-dyed silk, brass, bonded marble, handwritten recipe books.
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Installation view of Rakhi Peswani, ‘Fruits of Labour (A Monument to Exhaustion)’, 2013, dyed, organically treated and torn muslin, hand-built quilted cotton fabric, found, used, and discarded cloths, basic labour tools, wheat hull, found, and edited sound.
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A detailed view of Rakhi Peswani’s ‘Fruits of Labour (A Monument to Exhaustion)’. Juxtaposed with the Museum’s textile collection, the exhibition re-looks at the narratives invoked by a range of contemporary artists. The exhibition seeks to explore these trajectories in the works of artists who have approached the process of art making by engaging ‘craft’ and ‘traditional’ practices, to address contemporary concerns.
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Installation view of Monali Meher’s ‘Wrapped Bridal Photos from 2005’ (left), ‘Auspiciously Red III’ (centre) and ‘Blumen Mantel (Flower Coat)’ (right)
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