Anguish

Exhibition " Anguish"
Poems and Curated by Benoy P. J.
28 - 30 April, 1999, Faculty of Fine Arts Exhibition Hall, Baroda.


Burning Torso of the Night
(to Chinnan)

A seizure
In the middle of the night
By large hands
On whose fissured terrain
A palmists' compass had lost its way
And in its wobbly motion
Listless earth shifts around beneath your feet.
Blisters from a boisterous sun
Boiling like laments on the skin
Your heat entered a mustard seed
Breaking it into the stars
Of a dreary summer day
Seeking all the cranny's
For their cozy flesh.
From the edge of the crater
We look into the luminous tidings
Of a fallen star
Skeletal wings that fan out
To search the air for the wayward pollen of a wind.

We were cannibals
Out to prey on this thick current
You, with the smell and sleekness
Of a boy from the sea shore
Possessed by fathomless death.

No twin lanterns
did shine out
but the ominous green
of a dangerous life
on the burning lips of a monsoon wave
A wind dug up skeletons from the sand
and needles pierced your brows
A crab entered, with propped up eyes
only to disappear again,
submarine of the sand
skulls with the stamp of warrior's helmets
dislocated pieces of an unfinished puzzle.

A cup that waited
to be filled
on the rickety branches of a toddy-bar
where it came to know
of a kingfisher's yearning.

One was there,
out in the evening rain
without a cap
Thread-bare in the pale light
growing from that inner hell
that ate into his flesh.

Then he was lost
amidst the mob
no two sparrows saw him
though one was still
perched on his halo ( that paper lantern)
waiting with open beaks
and thrashing wings
for a mouthful of light.



Where the Toy Fan Brushes the Sky

On the tin roof
Of a pavement dwelling
painted in grays and browns
By the dust and the rust
a child had put up
That toy of graded yellows.

A mere speck, a simple device,
A toy fan of glittering golden yellow foil
Yet one that made the world around it
Turn on its axis,
When it caught the wind.

On a life reduced to its animal element
A large and proud flower
That had drawn out
All its festive energies.
Blossoming on this make-shift thatch.

At the angle that it dropped
it no longer
Rotated in the wind
But like a stubborn day flower
Held out on its own,
Fighting austerity
With a full blown passion
That kept alive
All the colors
Deep in its hatred, as in love.

Benoy P. J.

Redbat

Excerpts from Beyond the boundary: Travels of another kind

. . . It is perhaps the notion of a ‘captive body’ held immobile by the workings of power which connects the works of the ‘Missing Soil’ series to the ‘Red bat’ painting of Chinnan where an able bodied prisoner makes his appearance.

In spite of the fact that there is some element in Chinnan’s work that militates against interpretation or narrative, it would be interesting to pit this writing in the interstices of the drama that unfolds on this stage. That there is a mimetic space in this is obvious –the canvas turned into a stage, with curtains and lights and actors and behind the scenes intrigues.
The drama itself is a rather complex one- the interrelations of the three figures, what traverses between the elements of this stage remain ambiguous.

The figure of the little girl in the center is an epitome of this ambivalence- balancing on top of a moving ring with certain geometrical shapes in place of the legs, with arms/wings spread out as if in flight, dressed in a dark apparel. What is accomplished is an image that unravels the mystery of image making itself through various subtle devices. What exactly is this figure accomplishing? She seem to be attempting the task of balancing on top of a constantly moving ring, achieving a static posture through skillful maneuvering and also in the same process attempting to fly. Her body itself is an incomplete one with certain objects in place of the legs which make this task even more difficult. This figure points to the complexity of the present juncture where the individual is poised over a constant flux but attempts to balance delicately and at the same time dreams of flight beyond the actually existing. The image itself gives embodiment to these different times and movements simultaneously, the constantly evolving and heterogeneous past (traditions, ways of seeing, past painting), above which an image achieves its balance in the present and the wing that motions towards flight into a different time(the future). It is in being pierced thoroughly by these three times , for which she is never too well equipped (the legs) , that the image of the little girl accomplishes the difficult task of transforming itself into a presence( a subject) where people were want to see only lack. It can be seen as giving shape to an image of the historical avant-garde of modernism. The tension between this conceptual personae and its disabled form caught up in a perceived lack renders perceptible the gap between avant-gardism and third world (or even fourth world) aspirations.

The other two figures- the ‘red bat’ and the naked man behind the curtain- along with the girl do not form any continuous narrative in spite of their simultaneity. The links between them seem to be ambiguous and difficult to perceive. The small figure towards the left of the girl is a dark one clad in white which seems to be wielding a red bat. This figure is placed on top of a painter’s rag- an inanimate presence upon which the painter wipes his brushes. From the shadow, this appears to be another female figure whose bat creates a sudden movement which almost traces a red bruise on the canvas. The meticulous whiteness of the dress of this sporty figure is in sharp contrast with the dirty rag. The rag brings into the work the memory of the studio, being an inanimate spectator to the act of painting itself. It reminds us that the spectacular whiteness is achieved through elaborate rituals of exclusion and selection, making and covering of marks. The athleticism involved in mark -making vitalizes the act of painting by giving embodiment to a manual space that works through manual aggregates.

The larger figure on the right is seen as if from behind the curtain, but by the use of certain theatrical devices this naked male figure gains a centrality and prominence in the composition of the scene. The liminality of its presence accentuates the visual ambiguity of the stage, making what is behind the stage central to the whole scenario. This figure of a prisoner (with the number No.73) is an able bodied one- unlike the other two figures which appear to have been mutilated. It carries a light/ is seen besides some source of light.

The composition of the ‘Golden Mask’ resembles that of the ‘Red Bat’ in that it is a stage with actors/actresses, lighting and back curtains. The ground and the curtains are painted in shades of red. Yet the drama on stage this time is more linear in its narration. The figure with the ‘golden mask’ is followed by three others, all of them on the verge of tumbling into a white toilet with marks of blood on it. Another figure bathed in a blue light in the center points to the hole while he is about to climb up a stairway that appears levitating above the ground. In the centre the curtain is open revealing a space beyond. In front of this is the large figure of a woman painter- Frida Kahlo- with a brush in hand and a detached look. She seem to be totally unmoved by what transpires on the stage, totally immersed in her own world. The drama this time is a retake of Brueghel’s “Parable of the Blind” a theme which has been taken up many times by this artist. ‘Blindness’ becomes a metaphor for lack of ‘true vision’ in these works. However, it is interesting to note that blindness itself, as the blind character in Marcel Camus’s film “Black Orpheus” has powerfully indicated, is not simply a lack of vision, but a different vision, and those who are with eyesight may not very well know the way around in a world in which blind men knowingly go about their chores. The simultaneous articulation of a Bacon like figuration and the metaphorical status that ‘blindness’ gains in the painting creates a tension running through the work that lays it open to competing claims. This particular dis-articulation of ‘blindness’ or a “blindness towards the blind” cuts open a deep chasm on the surface beneath the closet into which the figures are seen to tumble. The commode then being the point of disposal of the “un-seeing” becomes also a rallying point in the other narrative where blindness articulates itself in terms other than that of the fall. Denying the ascribed centrality of the portrait of Frida and the catholicity of the ‘right path’ these tumbling figures render visible the junctions where ‘power is out of joint’. The classical conception of the fall becomes insufficient to articulate the popular heterogeneity of this tumbling which then gets prolonged ad- infinitum breaking the narrative about blindness and leadership. The modernist (Dada?) toilet clashes vehemently with the classical conception from which this is the only opening that leads outside. The scene, then appears to be rewritten in the following terms: “if ever the blind were to be lead by someone, it would best be done by the blind.”
- Benoy. P. J.