The Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo exhibition programme looks at Asia in 2006, starting with the exhibition SUBCONTINGENT. The Indian Subcontinent in Contemporary Art – curated by Ilaria Bonacossa and Francesco Manacorda - from 29 June to 8 October. The group show revolves around the Indian Subcontinent’ (Bangladesh, Buthan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka) seen through its complex matrix of populations, ideas, languages, mentalities, lifestyles, faiths and cultural heritage. The Subcontinent is the most densely populated region in the world and therefore the most culturally, politically and linguistically challenging (with 27 official and more than 200 unofficial national languages spoken throughout the region).
The contingent identity of this geographical area is an outcome of the pluralistic relations that arise from a clash of heterogeneous traditions and unresolved dreams of modernity. These opposing shifts make up a subcontinent of contingencies - a subcontingent universe. The exhibition brings together twenty-six artists, most of whom come from India or Pakistan and members of the South Asian Diaspora, as well as others who live outside the region and who are not directly related to the subcontinent but who, in one way or another, elaborate on it in their work.
The artists in the show are: Bani Abidi, Sarnath Banerjee, Enrico David, Chitra Ganesh, Shilpa Gupta, Alia Hasan-Khan, Runa Islam, Tushar Joag, Amar Kanwar, Sonia Khurana, Huma Mulji, The Otolith Group (Kodwo Eshun, Anjalika Sagar and Richard Couzins), Ashim Purkayastha, Raqs Media Collective (Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Monica Narula and Jeebesh Bagchi), Sharmila Samant, Tejal Shah & Varsha Nair, Kiran Subbaiah, L.N. Tallur, Dayanita Singh and taxi_onomy (Celine Condorelli and Beatrice Gibson).
Most of the artists will be making their European debut, in a show that articulates itself through multiple points of view and through works that range in media from video, installation, painting and sculpture, to wall drawings and performance, to hint at this multifaceted and contradictory cultural landscape.
Works include Shilpa Gupta’s installation of small glass bottles labelled ‘Blame’, to metaphorically transfer feelings of guilt; Bani Abidi’s video that broadcasts the same news story on two fictitious news programmes – one Indian and one Pakistani – to indicate the strong presence of plagiarism within the media; Sharmila Samant confronts the local-global issue by presenting a range of Coca Cola bottles from all over the world, although each one containing a typical drink from its locality. Amar Kanwar’s video gives voice to the oral poets of his country who tell of the socio-economical conflict throughout the Subcontinent. Chitra Ganesh will do a specially created wall drawing for the Fondazione, while Tejal Shaha and Varsha Nair will co-conduct a performance where they entangle themselves in one long white gown so tightly that they cannot move. The Otolith Group’s Otolith is a single softly-spoken voiceover across a quiltwork of footage, which looks at time from the perspective of a future anterior at personal and public histories relating to India, Russia, space and the vision of a non aligned world. Runa Islam’s camera frames rickshaw drivers relaxing under the shade of trees away from the traffic. The film captures them in a sort of time lapse, where only the variations of natural light are witness to the passing of time. Conceived as an autonomous exhibition, a special project created by Dayanita Singh is also featured. The show, entitled A Room of My Own, is made up of a series of black and white photographs where empty seats in cinemas and house interiors provoke an immense sensation of absence.
A catalogue to the exhibition has been produced by the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo and published by Electa. It features interviews with art world professionals who are active in the region, a critical response by Raqs Media Collective, Notes Towards Indophilia – On Gurus by The Otolith Group and a literary conversation between the Pakistani writer Mohsin Hamid and the Indian writer Suketu Metha.
Turin ‘s National Museum for Cinema will present a series of films, curated by Elena Aime, entitled OFF BOLLYWOOD. INDIAN CINEMA OF TODAY. Among the titles are: Acque Silenziose by Sabiha Sumar, Amu by Shonali Bose, Little Terrorist by Ashvin Kumar and Matrubhoomi, a Nation without Women by Manish Jha.
Participating artists
Bani Abidi, Sarnath Banerjee, Enrico David, Chitra Ganesh, Shilpa Gupta, Alia Hasan-Khan, Runa Islam, Tushar Joag, Amar Kanwar, Sonia Khurana, Huma Mulji, The Otolith Group (Kodwo Eshun, Anjalika Sagar and Richard Couzins), Ashim Purkayastha, Raqs Media Collective (Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Monica Narula and Jeebesh Bagchi), Sharmila Samant, Tejal Shah & Varsha Nair, Kiran Subbaiah, L.N. Tallur, Dayanita Singh and taxi_onomy (Celine Condorelli and Beatrice Gibson)
