Important Notice

Multimedia artist and photographer Vivek Vilasini uses his body of work as a vehicle to explore various aspects of identity and tradition, particularly their fluidity and transmission across cultures and geographies.

In the present lot, a large photographic print, Vilasini adopts the setting of Vincent van Gogh's 1885 painting, The Potato Eaters, as a model. The original painting, one of van Gogh's earliest, portrays five Dutch... Multimedia artist and photographer Vivek Vilasini uses his body of work as a vehicle to explore various aspects of identity and tradition, particularly their fluidity and transmission across cultures and geographies.

In the present lot, a large photographic print, Vilasini adopts the setting of Vincent van Gogh's 1885 painting, The Potato Eaters, as a model. The original painting, one of van Gogh's earliest, portrays five Dutch peasants in a dreary, rundown cabin; they are fatigued and somnolent, with creased foreheads and a meager meal of potatoes and chicory coffee before them. Much to his disappointment, van Gogh did not receive a favorable response from the few that saw this piece, and it was not exhibited during the master's lifetime. In fact, the painting has only been owned by members of the van Gogh family, and currently resides at the van Gogh museum in Amsterdam.

In his version of the nineteenth century canvas, Vilasini replaces the peasants of the original painting with the dramatically animated Kathakali dancers, native to his home state, Kerala. Unlike the original painting depicting five peasants sitting in a somber room under the dim light of an oil lamp, Vilasini's five dancers are seated in ambient lighting, involved in an energetic exchange. They share a meal out of a ubiquitous stacked ‘tiffin box', and drink hot tea, poured into shiny silver cups.

While there is no sense of the ‘real poverty' that van Gogh chose to portray, there is a heightened sense of drama. The dancers in Vilasini's photographic homage to van Gogh seem to be in disagreement. The artiste on the left, adorned in yellow face makeup, a colour often used to depict the Gods or heroes in Kathakali plays, sits at the head of the table, while three red-faced dancers glance at each other across the table, in the face makeup typical of angry or demonic characters.

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