Cabinet 2, 2015

Hong Kong 2015
Cabinet 2

Chemould Prescott Road

Installation
wooden cabinet installation (treated with polyester putty & zinc powder), photographs, sculptures, paintings, found objects
246.4 x 161.3 x 54.6 （厘米）
97.0 x 63.5 x 21.5 （吋）
Atul Dodiya Cabinet # 2, 2014 Wooden cabinet installation (treated with polyester putty and zinc powder) with photographs, sculptures, paintings and found objects 97 x 63 1/2 x 21 1/2 inches The cabinet enclosed in this exhibition was part of the Bhau Daji Lad Museum’s curatorial series, ‘Engaging Traditions’, which encourages contemporary artists to engage with the Museum’s history and collection. Through the series, artists are invited respond to the Museum’s collection, history and archives, addressing issues that speak directly to the traditions and issues that underlie the founding of the Museum, yet evoke the present by challenging orthodoxies and questioning assumptions. This sculptural assemblage from the exhibition 7000 Museums: A Project For The Republic Of India, the cabinet (a format/ medium that is often used by Dodiya) evokes a layered dialogue with varied conceptual frameworks from the Museum’s collection, as they reference defining moments of history, art history as well as the semantics of museums and museum displays. Atul addresses the complexity of various simultaneous happenings in history- of politics, art and culture, through playful interventions in his works. The oil painting reference historical photographs of events from the freedom struggle in the city of Mumbai in the 30s and 40s which are interrupted through abstractions from, markings, gashes from the works of Rabindranath Tagore - poet and painter, working in Bengal at the very time that Gandhi was making his mark in the western provinces.