Artist Adip Dutta’s work at the ongoing Bengal Biennale displays the organic nature of art
Celebrated artist Adip Dutta is showcasing a series of his works from different phases of his working years at the ongoing Bengal Biennale’s Archaeology of the Present: Traces and Transformations section at The Red Bari, Kolkata. “Adip Dutta, a sculptor and academic, evokes not just material history but the history of our seeing and being through a vision shaped by fragments and remains in this restored building. In his work, three distinct voices emerge and merge. Each speaks in a register of ruin, unearthed and reimagined—a memory made present, yet ambiguously so, lying somewhere between archaeology and anthropology,” says Siddharth Sivakumar, curator and director of the Bengal Biennale. We have a short chat with Adip to learn more about it.
What are the works you are showcasing at the Bengal Biennale?
Three sets of my works are being presented as a composite whole. These works have been made at different points of time. Yet when placed together, they get into a dialogue with each other. It was interesting for me to see how a body of work that had come up as a response to a situation connects to other works pulled from different frames of time. The very organic nature of the practice gets emphasised, and it generates new narratives. A set of ten drawings (simulating archaeological plates of excavation sites), titled Ruptures, a metal cast of a tree trunk (presented as an object from any natural history museum) titled Vestige, and sculptural objects based on boring tools (appearing as ethnographic objects) constitute the presentation at the Biennale. It has been titled Archaeology of the Present: Traces and Transformations. All three works relate to my engagements with the spaces of the city (here, the construction sites), labour, tools, etc., against the backdrop of the idea of topography in general, forming the area of my enquiry regarding history and its continuity in the form of a claim concerning ‘the past as alive.’
They represent two-three phases of your art life...how different are they from each other in approach?
Earlier, I responded to objects as a sculptor. Later, the spaces to which these objects belong became my area of interest. The works make an attempt to build a sense of history and human interventions, though seldom does the human figure appear in my work. The works are in many different forms, like drawings and sculptures. It is an exploration of the relationship between drawings and sculptures and the to-and-fro movement between the two.
Between painting and sculpture, what do you enjoy doing the most?
Drawing is fundamental to all form of visual arts. Hence, I respond to it both as an integral part of my sculptural process, and as an autonomous form. Often, I start with a drawing and move to sculpture and often return to drawing from the solid form.
Who are your favourite artists?
There are many, but at present, I am looking at British artist Robert Gober’s works.
Tell us about your upcoming work.
Currently, I am working on spaces of the city, in addressing the transition.