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Lot 34

 

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An installation artist, photographer, activist and writer, Sheba Chhachhi's practice skillfully negotiates various media to explore themes and communicate ideas to her audience. Her forte lies in her dexterous use of multiple media, experimenting alternately with photography, video, sound and light, to conjure artworks that communicate with a diverse audience at various levels. In these works, Chhachhi comments on the movements that produce and... An installation artist, photographer, activist and writer, Sheba Chhachhi's practice skillfully negotiates various media to explore themes and communicate ideas to her audience. Her forte lies in her dexterous use of multiple media, experimenting alternately with photography, video, sound and light, to conjure artworks that communicate with a diverse audience at various levels. In these works, Chhachhi comments on the movements that produce and define the realities of existence in today's globalised world.

The present lot, Warrior Saint, is a video installation that puts together images of Bollywood heroes gathered from fan sites, screensavers, posters and publicity material. Given the unprecedented increase in violence in every sphere of life, cinematic images of masculinity are increasingly equating the heroic and sexually powerful with violence - a trend gaining increasing acceptance. The present work examines the implications of acceptance of such a construct.

Given Chhachhi's long involvement with exploring the feminine in the public consciousness through her practice, Warrior Saint represents a departure of sorts for the artist in its meditative rumination on the image of the ideal male. The male torso, with a statue of the Buddha casually tucked into its front shirt pocket, becomes the stage on which the evolving role of the hero is played out - from the peaceful face of the earlier avatar to the complex conflicted male hero of today. "In her specific conjunction of the use of the emblematic figure of 'ahimsa' (non violence) and the hero/terrorist she compels a review of the notion of the iconic. In the movement of the viewer between these two extremes, the artist urges an examination of popular values that merge desire and violence within a single figure" (Gayatri Sinha, Cinema Still, Apparao Gallery exhibition catalogue, 2002, not paginated).

Albeit a departure, the current work indirectly yet implicitly draws from the artist's earlier works. Feminist politics and sexuality, cinematic narrative and the role of images have been constant points of reference in Chhachhi's works. Her past use of popular images to reassess popular perceptions of male and female sexuality in our society is employed in Warrior Saint to highlight the complex and changing perceptions associated with masculinity, where violence is increasingly taking precedence.

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