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The Imaginary Institution of India at London’s Barbican Centre

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THE OBJECTS IN an exhibition are usually chosen to fit in with a particular theme. An exhibition might be based on the work of an individual artist or a group of artists; on a style of art (e.g., Impressionism or Expressionism or portraiture); on a specific genre (e.g., etchings or sculpture or paintings or photographs); a period of history. It is the latter theme – a period of history – which has been adopted to create a superb exhibition, “The Imaginary Institution of India” at London’s Barbican gallery. This show is on until the 5th of January 2025.  

The theme connecting the artworks on display at this exhibition is India during the period from 1975 to 1998. You might well wonder why these years have been singled out. Some landmarks during these years include Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s proclamation of a state of emergency in 1975; problems in West Bengal (in 1979); the founding of the BJP party; inter-communal problems; the attack on the Golden Temple in Amritsar (1984); the toxic leakage at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal; Hindu-Muslim tensions in Ayodhya; the destruction of the Babri Masjid (in Ayodhya); terrorist attacks in Bombay; and India’s successful underground nuclear tests. These events and many others occurred during the period covered by the exhibition.

The works on display at the exhibition are, according to the Barbican’s useful handout (a booklet), expressions of the various artists’ reaction to the events and social upheavals occurring in India during the years 1975 to 1998. The booklet describes what the exhibition’s organisers believe were the artists’ (political) messages being expressed in their creations. Interesting as these observations are, the works on display can be enjoyed without having any knowledge of what might have or might not have been going through the artists’ minds while they were producing their artworks. The exhibition provides a wonderful display of the excellence of Indian art produced during the period covered by the show.

I had not heard of most of the artists apart from MF Hussain, Bhupen Khakar, Sudhir Patwardhan, and Arpita Singh. The works that I liked most are by Patwardhan, Singh, Gieve Patel, and some lovely bronzes by Meera Mukherjee. I was also impressed by a set of collages by CK Rajan. That said, almost every work on display is worth seeing. The only disappointment for me was a video-based installation by Nalini Malani.

The Barbican has displayed these works in this exhibition both brilliantly and dramatically. I hope that the seemingly specialised nature of the theme of the exhibition (and its rather odd name) will not deter people from experiencing this superb collection of artworks.

Narrative art in the round at London’s Barbican Centre

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THE CURVE AT London’s Barbican Centre is as its name suggests, a curved space. When the Centre was built, the Curve was designed as a space to act as a sound barrier or buffer to contain the sounds emanating from the concert hall that it surrounds. Nowadays, it is used as a space for temporary exhibitions. Until the 5th of January 2025, the Curve will contain an exhibition, “It will end in tears”, of paintings Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum, who was born in Botswana in 1980.

Ms Sunstrum’s paintings are on grainy wooden panels, and are truly wonderfully executed. The series of paintings are all linked by a narrative – an imagined story of a woman who lands in a colonial country in Africa in the early to mid-20th century, and has an adventure that ends up with a court case. For this exhibition, the Curve has been divided by wooden partitions into a series of rooms, connected to each other by an elevated walkway. Each room is designed to resemble a different stage set. For example. one is a kitchen. and another is a courtroom. The viewer walks along the walkway from room to room, seeing the series of paintings arranged in the order that the story unfolds. The heroine of the story is an imagined woman named Bettina. The artist created Bettina in her own image – each depiction of Bettina is the artist’s self-portrait. The resulting set of pictures along with the wooden partitions makes for an enjoyable and intriguing experience.

The paintings are like ‘stills’ from a movie. Although their style and subject matter is completely different, I was reminded of series of paintings such as those by Vittore Carpaccio (c1460-c1525) in Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni (in Venice), which show scenes from a legend with a Christian religious theme.

Ms Sunstrum’s site-specific exhibition at the Curve is what the series of guidebooks issued by the Michelin tyre company would describe as “vaut la détour” (‘worth the detour’).