PHANTASMAGORIA: THE REALITY AND FANTASY
Burrowing into the rabbit hole of ‘wonderland’ through the recently opened show ‘Phantasmagoria’ at Latitude 28, New Delhi. The concept of fantasy and the idea of escape is not particular to our age of ‘virtual reality.’ The idea of myth-making can be traced back to the ancient era in art. Given that our realities have indeed been scrambled it is perhaps pertinent to talk of ‘phantasmagoria’ in today’s age.
In fact, we are informed by the conceptual premise of the exhibition Phantasmagoria written by Saloni that it was Walter Benjamin in the ‘Arcades Project’ who came up with the explanation for the ‘urban experience and commodity culture as a sequence of phantasmagorias which are described as dream-like representational images mixing fiction and reality.’
This is why “The painterly surface becomes the door to the phantasmatic terrains to tap onto the hidden realities,” to quote Bhavna Kakar, from the recently opened show at Latitude 28, showcasing the works of artists Dileep Sharma, Farhad Hussain, George Martin, and Pratul Dash.
Contemporary culture with all its illusive imagery is a testimony to this concept. Thus, the exhibition Phantasmagoria brings together artists who problematize the concept of realism as well as reality, especially in an age which is a ‘frenzy of simulations.’ By this frenzy one takes it to indicate social media, virtual reality, and other such media-driven existence, where the environment has not taken kindly to global warming and e-waste.
However, this exhibition takes freely from pop culture while blurring the boundaries between ‘high’ and ‘low’ art and does not speak in an alarmist tone, it looks rather heartwarmingly and with a large dose of humor at the idea of the fantastic. These artists form bricolages of mental landscapes. ‘Parody’ and ‘Pastiche’ are blended together to form a post-post-modern critique of consumerist aesthetics.
Pratul Dash employs a painterly language that could be termed as surrealist in its metaphor. The painted surface is employed to ‘distort the perception’ of the viewer and thereby question their view of representation. Reality is an unraveled approach towards the strange where nature is constructed of realities and fantasies. An Ostrich balanced on a sickle moon buries its head into a black egg that crackles with an inner volcanic fire. He creates a window through which one can view this fantasy world like a rabbit hole that takes you to a place of magical hyper-realism.
Farhad Husain trots out his Disney World characters to play and parody the idea of a fun-land, a place where consumerism is king and where questions are not asked. He creates an ‘eclectic rhetoric’ of images coming from diverse schools of paintings, prints, and images from the entertainment world creating a montage of old and new. He explores the complex areas of human relationships especially in an urban and semi-urban society which are always being nurtured through the hands and minds of capitalism.
George Martin uses his selection of pop imagery and pageantry of colour to construct his thoughts that allude to the ‘fluidity of music and sound’. In a sense, a pastiche of sorts is manifested by bringing in images from distinct sources revealing the fragmentary nature of contemporary times. This body of work tends to take on a distinct identity through the biological colouration of mutilated figures and the pastiche of images from different resources.
We could see through the works of Dash and the other artists as well that animals and insects have become important motives to give hints about different perceptions of the world. They also stand as metaphors of helplessness that comes with being a witness to change that one cannot understand and yet is surrounded by it all our lives.
Dileep Sharma’s prints and paintings refer to the feminine form to comment on the notion of fantasy and escape, particularly iconic women like Amrita Sher-Gil and Frida Kahlo, and even the singer Shakira, to indicate that world of fantasy and escape. Both artists lived impossible lives, heightened by beauty and fame but darkened by pain and early onset of death. In Sharma’s work one however does not see the dark side, rather one glimpses glorious renditions of their panache through his pop imagery. As it has been said of his work, the conundrums brought forth in his era are best swallowed down with a pinch of salt and a fistful of sugar, which is exactly the recipe of his works.
We often hurt that which is most precious to us and then live to regret the outcome, sometimes the awareness comes only generations later by which time a chain of damage has been set off and we are unable to right the wrongs done over time. The world of fantasy can give us hope no doubt but we must not lose touch with the harsh edge of reality and paradoxically it is sometimes a playful engagement with art that reminds us of this.
Text by Georgina Maddox
Images courtesy: Latitude 28
Find more about Latitude 28 and the artists:
https://www.saffronart.com/artists/dileep-sharma
https://aaa.org.hk/en/collections/search/library/farhad-hussain-recent-paintings
