The Indian Museum in Kolkata is a venerable old institution. Dating back to 1814 it’s one of the 10 oldest museums in the world. And has the largest collection in Asia. 35 galleries with everything the gates to Buddhist stupas, to dinosaur skeletons to ancient coins. And an Egyptian mummy.
Recently the ancient mummy came out after 25 years to see an art show said Sayan Bhattacharya, the deputy director of the museum on a panel recently
SB1:this 5000 year old mummy came out after 25 years only to see Boka’s art.
The 5000 year old mummy was placed in a room where it was surrounded by contemporary Indian artists as if having a dialogue across time. That in fact is the name of a show curated by Sayantan Maitra Boka which placed some of the finest Indian contemporary and folk artists in a place you would never expect to find them - the museum.
Artist Bhabatosh Sutar said growing up everything in a museum felt dead to him, where touch was forbidden. That’s why museums never attracted him as an artist.
BS1:
Now he’s part of a show spread out all over the museum, breathing life into the dead and dusty as it were. The Night of the Living Dead perhaps in a way.
This is Sandip Roy in Kolkata.
Curator Sayantan Maitra Boka took us on a little walking tour to show how he had tucked the art away into unexpected corners of the museum. It is, says one of the artists, like having museums within the museum. Accidental artistic encounters says Boka.
SMB1: situating these artworks also as an accidental viewing.
In a gallery with exquisite miniatures from centuries ago, contemporary miniatures called House wifery, showing women doing so-called women’s work in the house like cutting vegetables.
SMB3: Contemporary miniatures of women from now doing their regular rituals
And on a landing in the grand staircase right behind a huge 3rd century stone Bull hang lifelike charcoal sketches of tigers done by some 200 artists of the villages near Ranthambhore national park. Jalpa Vithalani who curated the Eye of the Tiger. Artists using paper nibs and charcoal powder.
JV1: Speaker1: The village artists, they are using very, very basic materials. They actually make the paper nibs from, you know, they roll newspaper. They don't have even pencils. And we work with those same basic paper nibs and charcoal powder to create this work.
Sometimes the art is tongue in cheek comment on the exhibit. An artist who works with animal skin, her work is next to life-like models of Siberian ibex and Marco Polo sheep. In that same room huge life size skeletons of whales span the room, handing from the ceiling.
Artist Subodh Kerkar talks about finding whalebone on a beach and incorporating them into his art using typefaces once used by missionaries to print Bibles in Indian languages.. Because the whalebones, like the typeface, carry messages across continents brought across oceans.
SK1: The ocean is the carrier of text.
And sometimes the commentary is subtle almost wry. The huge 2nd century BC Buddhist stupa gates fill up a room, occupy pride of place in the museum. Right in front are two sculptures two faces made by Alwar Balasubramaniam. In 2994 they looked the same but Boka says one was made of sand the other of camphor. So that has evaporated slowly while the sand is preserved.
SMB4: Camphor based sculpture so it keeps on melting and evaporating. The other is sand, the last form so it will not disintegrate into anything else.
In a museum which is all about trying to preserve what existed once, its a wry comment on time and transience.
Unlike a gallery which attracts art aficionados a museum like this attracts all kinds of people. History buffs, school students, a families from villages taking in the sights of the big city. Some 200,000 people have gone through this museum. Priyanka Raja of the Experimenter gallery says this is art at its most inclusive and the Indian museum should inspire every other museum.
PR1: if Indian Museum can do this, why can't our many hundred other museums that are under the culture ministry or even state ministries do exactly that?
Most came to see the museum and stumbled upon the art. Perhaps some thought the art was just part of the museum exhibits like the mummy. And that sparks a dialogue between art and audience that perhaps even the artists didn’t expect.
As the sun sets, and the guards blow the whistle to shoo visitors out I almost imagine that when we leave the dialogue between the 5000 year old mummy and the 21st century art will continue.
WHISTLE
It will our version of Night in the Museum in Kolkata when the dead exhibits come to life.
This is Sandip Roy in Kolkata for KALW