In tune with life's rhythms
The title of Raghu Rai's latest exhibition at Tasveer (December 13 to 31) was "Divine Moments".
On the obvious plane this could be associated with the not too numerous presence of godly images captured around ritualistic circumstances but immersed in the normalcy of life in the happening. On a subtler one it can be recognised as much in the references to the arts, artists and the cultural heritage as in the focus on an inner, animated connection between the naturally aesthetic appearance of concrete reality and the more or less conscious artistic qualities of the picture grasping it.
The now senior lens-man speaks about his efforts enabled and energised by the higher power to capture the wondrous aura of things in meditative silence where the merger of relevant and irrelevant elements becomes revelatory. The viewer is bound to associate his photographs with the classic 'moment' offering an insight into the both raw and nuanced behaviour and moods of life while it is becoming, massive numbers and processes marking it together with relatively individual portrayals close-on.
Noticed early in his career by Henri Cartier-Bresson, the creator of 'the moment' approach, Rai has been a classicist in his perceptive attuning to the rough yet potent manifestations of ordinary existence, in his patiently modest waiting for the world to, with immediacy and in black and white, display the form of its significance, in the balance between proximity to the subject and the distance that remains respectful of his/he privacy.
Shaped at a time when the moulding of the new, universally addressed national image was paramount post-Independence and when Western, especially European, Modernist inspirations were strong and necessary, he reflects those aspects of the era as well. This may be observed in the frequency of political and cultural icons in his repertoire, on the one hand, and, on the other, in the more than sporadic artificiality of certain formalistic methods. The Tasveer show being a retrospective selection from sometimes famous prints that ranged from ones done in the beginning of the 1970s to quite recent ones, demonstrated the endurance of Rai's spirit as a contemporary Indian classic.
Truly lasting values belong to the former and fortunately prevailing part of his oeuvre which is always visually attuned to the pulses of normal existence, while the viewer can sense the artist calmly, emphatically looking at and into human and organic entities as well as their accumulations slowly move and sometimes halt in front of his eyes, as though simultaneous panoramas and individualities. For instance, the shot from a Ganapati festival in Mumbai has partly separate and partly paralleling horizontal stripes of crowded people interspersed with clay idols and the sky.
The rounded pulses amid the heads and the multiple divine hands and figures seem to recede into the endless horizon to meet the cumuli that also proceed within. A pensive atmosphere fills the images that compare the human predicament in different social strata or just relish the passing beauty of modest sights.
Their restrained dynamism gains primacy in some excellently timed revelations of emphatic movement among collaborating labourers. Whereas Rai's stressing the intrinsic structure and patterns of real circumstances and their specific painterliness can be superb as well as his ability to grasp the precious in the figure of a great singer, he occasionally either plays on the art-like appearance of the actual or montages real shots in a somewhat forced manner.
Irony and warmth
One has appreciated the drawings of Mohankumar T for their ability to oscillate between and blend sheer evocativeness with narratives as well as critical sarcasm with accepting, even compassionate warmth.
In those he very ably mediating an almost loud yet up to the point realistic directness, an expressive over-stress and an essentialist calming, conjures an array of human or hybrid, animal-human creatures that, approached in entangled, generalised masses as well as in individual proximity, add to a loose assembly of current social situations and emotive-intentional states seen from a young person's participative - angry, passionate and involved but also sensitive and distanced perspective.
"The Road to Distinction", his show at Bar1 (December 29 to January 1), apart from a series of earlier drawings, based on two interactive installations whose different character brought out the two complementary strands inherent in the drawings. Playful, inclusive, connecting and freeing humour, enjoyment in fact, dominated the introductory piece with a mesh of colourful ribbons and paper cut outs. The much more complex, mature and effective within its understatement, was the installation with often broken electrical sockets and plugs on the wall and floor amid which drawn headless of hybrid figures seemed to be locating a path, uncertain identity or doomed evolution.
The title of Raghu Rai's latest exhibition at Tasveer (December 13 to 31) was "Divine Moments".
On the obvious plane this could be associated with the not too numerous presence of godly images captured around ritualistic circumstances but immersed in the normalcy of life in the happening. On a subtler one it can be recognised as much in the references to the arts, artists and the cultural heritage as in the focus on an inner, animated connection between the naturally aesthetic appearance of concrete reality and the more or less conscious artistic qualities of the picture grasping it.
The now senior lens-man speaks about his efforts enabled and energised by the higher power to capture the wondrous aura of things in meditative silence where the merger of relevant and irrelevant elements becomes revelatory. The viewer is bound to associate his photographs with the classic 'moment' offering an insight into the both raw and nuanced behaviour and moods of life while it is becoming, massive numbers and processes marking it together with relatively individual portrayals close-on.
Noticed early in his career by Henri Cartier-Bresson, the creator of 'the moment' approach, Rai has been a classicist in his perceptive attuning to the rough yet potent manifestations of ordinary existence, in his patiently modest waiting for the world to, with immediacy and in black and white, display the form of its significance, in the balance between proximity to the subject and the distance that remains respectful of his/he privacy.
Shaped at a time when the moulding of the new, universally addressed national image was paramount post-Independence and when Western, especially European, Modernist inspirations were strong and necessary, he reflects those aspects of the era as well. This may be observed in the frequency of political and cultural icons in his repertoire, on the one hand, and, on the other, in the more than sporadic artificiality of certain formalistic methods. The Tasveer show being a retrospective selection from sometimes famous prints that ranged from ones done in the beginning of the 1970s to quite recent ones, demonstrated the endurance of Rai's spirit as a contemporary Indian classic.
Truly lasting values belong to the former and fortunately prevailing part of his oeuvre which is always visually attuned to the pulses of normal existence, while the viewer can sense the artist calmly, emphatically looking at and into human and organic entities as well as their accumulations slowly move and sometimes halt in front of his eyes, as though simultaneous panoramas and individualities. For instance, the shot from a Ganapati festival in Mumbai has partly separate and partly paralleling horizontal stripes of crowded people interspersed with clay idols and the sky.
The rounded pulses amid the heads and the multiple divine hands and figures seem to recede into the endless horizon to meet the cumuli that also proceed within. A pensive atmosphere fills the images that compare the human predicament in different social strata or just relish the passing beauty of modest sights.
Their restrained dynamism gains primacy in some excellently timed revelations of emphatic movement among collaborating labourers. Whereas Rai's stressing the intrinsic structure and patterns of real circumstances and their specific painterliness can be superb as well as his ability to grasp the precious in the figure of a great singer, he occasionally either plays on the art-like appearance of the actual or montages real shots in a somewhat forced manner.
Irony and warmth
One has appreciated the drawings of Mohankumar T for their ability to oscillate between and blend sheer evocativeness with narratives as well as critical sarcasm with accepting, even compassionate warmth.
In those he very ably mediating an almost loud yet up to the point realistic directness, an expressive over-stress and an essentialist calming, conjures an array of human or hybrid, animal-human creatures that, approached in entangled, generalised masses as well as in individual proximity, add to a loose assembly of current social situations and emotive-intentional states seen from a young person's participative - angry, passionate and involved but also sensitive and distanced perspective.
"The Road to Distinction", his show at Bar1 (December 29 to January 1), apart from a series of earlier drawings, based on two interactive installations whose different character brought out the two complementary strands inherent in the drawings. Playful, inclusive, connecting and freeing humour, enjoyment in fact, dominated the introductory piece with a mesh of colourful ribbons and paper cut outs. The much more complex, mature and effective within its understatement, was the installation with often broken electrical sockets and plugs on the wall and floor amid which drawn headless of hybrid figures seemed to be locating a path, uncertain identity or doomed evolution.