Meera Mukherjee and Jaidev Baghel. Both were celebrated sculptors. Both prominently dealt with Bastar dhokra. Both gained popularity in the 1970s. And both modernists who emerged within the cultural identity of the newly independent India. Yet, never did their paths cross, at least according to recorded history. Their artworks at the recently launched exhibition Outside In: Meera Mukherjee and Jaidev Baghel at Museum of Art and Photography (MAP), Bengaluru, however, brings out how their paths, in the end, did converge — not in person, but in art.
This exhibition features 26 sculptures and six textiles from the MAP collection, a publication featuring the artworks of the artists and a film screening within the gallery. Set against the backdrop of indigenous crafts and artistic identity, the exhibition explores the two artists navigating the erstwhile shifting landscape of Bastar dhokra. Bastar dhokra belongs to the world of brassware handicrafts and is a metallurgical artwork based on a lost-wax method, which is used throughout the alloy casting.
However, their medium was not the only thread that connected them. Kuzhali Jaganathan, who has co-curated with Arnika Ahldag, explains, “Jaidev Baghel was an artist from a community of traditional metal casting practitioners, who grew out of his mold and became a modern artist. On the other hand, Meera Mukherjee was a modern artist who ventured into traditional metal casting — the idea of artisan-based workshops and how they worked — which she later used in her work. In fact,” she continues, “Meera learned from Jaidev’s father. Both Meera and Jaidev started creating and exhibiting their works from the late 1970s onwards. So, in a way, they lead parallel lives — their journeys in art began from their roots but took a turning point when they explored newer worlds and let it influence them completely.” Hence, the title – Outside In.
This can be traced in the works displayed at the gallery, where artworks are displayed in sets of two. The first ones to catch our eyes as we walked through were the bronze figurines Mother and Child by Meera Mukherjee and Madin with Her Child by Jaidev Baghel. The former — a figure of a child hugging his mother to the point of almost fusing into her — is perhaps one of the few artworks you would come across where the child is sculpted to the same scale as the mother. The latter — one of a tribal woman putting her child to sleep — in contrast, plays on the scale with the mother’s torso elongated and the baby’s figure diminished.
“The trajectories of the two could meet because post-Independent India was also trying to find its own identity and a lot of nationalists, such as Mahatma Gandhi, went back to understanding how the artisans led a life creating and selling their works and sustaining themselves. That was the model that the government was trying to support,” Kuzhali tells us.
Not just that. The works of both artists also reflect post-independent India by depicting the lives of ordinary people. For instance, Vandevi Panchamukhi by Jaidev is a five-headed goddess in the form of a tree (or is it a tree in the form of a five-headed goddess?). This seems to capture the era when tribal motifs worshiping nature regained prominence as a domino effect of the conflict arising when corporations started to industrialise tribal regions. Interestingly, conflict between the ordinary man and the corporate finds expression in Meera’s works as well. Case in point: The Passport Office. The sculpture shows crowded queues of people waiting for a passport office to open, which seems to be closed for so long that its walls are filled with cobwebs. As we took a stroll across the gallery, we could think of very few exhibits held in the city in the recent past that have managed to capture a bygone era through sculptures, this beautifully.
Can we experience anything similar at the museum anytime soon? “Yes,” Kuzhali smiles with her eyes and says, “There is a postcard exhibition to be debuting on April 6 called Hello & Goodbye. There is one happening after that, based on the infrastructures built by different collectives for the development of art,” concluding the conversation.
INR 100. Till October 20. At the Museum of Art and Photography, Kasturba Road.
Email: prattusa@newindianexpress.com
X: @MallikPrattusa