Inside Out: Contemporary Women Artists of India

…In appraising an exhibition such as ‘Inside Out’, the question ‘what exactly am I looking at?’ can never be far from the viewer’s mind. The only clue as to the curatorial thesis behind the exhibition is provided by Alison Lloyd, (the curator) who writes that ‘the artists in this exhibition have been using a variety of media to examine issues that affect contemporary art in India including politics, the modern metropolis, myth, academicism, violence and female subjectivity’. But perhaps in that quote the word ‘life’ should be substituted for the word ‘art’.

There is a conspicuous absence of curatorial ideas in ‘Inside Out’ that leads to the work being presented in the most intellectually cramped and conventional of ways. By and large, the work of each artist is isolated into self-contained, self-referencing sections and we are left to do our own cross-referencing. In other words, the work itself is frequently interesting, but the presentation of it is boring and unimaginative. In this regard, ‘Inside Out’ is more of a museum exhibition than a gallery exhibition…

…Likewise, in Time Image, an old woman is depicted sewing something that simultaneously appears as fabric and landscape. But Sutapa Biswas, who has written catalogue notes on several of the artists, quite rightly points out that the portrayal of the woman in Time Image is ‘far from idyllic’. Biswas goes on to describe the piece: ‘A large pair of scissors violently dissects the image, with the two blades cutting across the body of the woman at work. As the scissors cut flesh and cloth, what seems to be tears or sweat pour from the wound collecting into a black pool at the edge of the painting. They gradually appear to be obliterating or cloaking the entire image’. Ominous indeed. In an etching, Boundaries, a doom-laden, stormy sky appears to be raining opened and sharpened scissors – murderous, calculating death from the heavens…

The above extracts are from an exhibition review by Eddie Chambers of “Inside Out: Contemporary Women Artists of India”, Art Monthly, London, Number 193, February 1996: 35-37