Opening with a preview on 27 August, the exhibition brings together a careful curation of works by contemporary artists Arunkumar H G, Asim Waqif, Guruvinayak Singh Budhwar, Pooja Iranna, Rakesh Patel, Salik Ansari, Shanthamani Muddaiah, Shweta Mansingka and Tanmay Santra.
The group exhibition considers what happens to materials, images and ideas as they move from one condition to another. Curated through close looking and material research, Nothing Arrives Unchanged begins with a simple idea: arrival is never a neutral endpoint. An object reaching the gallery may appear complete at first glance but its form carries traces of the process, systems and decisions through which it has passed. Clay has been fired; steel has been cut, welded and weathered; discarded materials have been reassembled, photographs have transformed real events into images and myths have travelled across generations and artistic forms.
The exhibition asks viewers to look at artworks not only as resolved visual objects, but also as provisional settlements between material, labour, technology, history and context. Some of the highlights from this exhibition include this year’s Venice Biennale artist Asim Waqif’s Demolition Analysis: Madrasi Camp 4 that traces a complex passage. A demolition site becomes a photograph, which becomes data for image analysis, and that becomes CNC routing and ultraviolet printing on an aluminium composite panel with a scrap JCB mudguard as a final artwork. The finished artwork makes visible the successive transformations through which an actual event becomes an image and then an artwork. Another highlight includes Arunkumar HG’s Varaha which is constructed from plastic waste, paper pulp, cement dust and epoxy. The sculpture retains the outline of a boar while replacing the traditional image with discarded industrial fragments. In his version of the boar, the surface is accumulated and assembled rather than the traditional rock cut version of Varaha which included hundreds of carved figures. This particular sculpture becomes an ecological symbol as the epoxy preserves the waste to become a durable art object.
In Pooja Iranna’s Symphony-4 and Sculptural Drawings, the staple pin loses its ordinary function through repetition. Hundreds of these staples become architectural forms, revealing the labour and minute decisions concealed within one work. The viewer first encounters a coherent architectural form and only gradually recognises the countless minor acts that sustain its visual unity. Rakesh Patel’s Annexure 1 uses industrial material like Large Corten steel elements that are cut and welded into planes, apertures and support. The atmosphere surrounding it helps to distribute visual and physical weight and showcase how industrial material can produce form when it is supplemented with tension, air and the void. Both these works show that standardised material can also produce uniformity as well as differentiation in a work.
Shanthamani Muddaiah’s Current I and Current II brings together tyre tubes, silk thread, LED lights and optical fibre to consider the intertwined histories of electrification, textile production, labour and Bengaluru’s changing economy. The works resist the idea of technological progress as a seamless trajectory and their materials retain tensions between hand and machine, continuity and occupational change, past and present. Shweta Mansingka’s Locked Vulnerabilities uses saggar-filled ceramic elements, antique iron keys, wood and metal fittings. The keys are present but the lock is absent in this work which can be inferred as a promise of access and possession that has been withheld.
Kalakriti Art Gallery itself becomes a part of this inquiry as light, electricity, mounting systems, atmospheric conditions, and installations all participate in how works are encountered and interpreted. As a result, the exhibition serves as another moment in these artworks’ lives and their material intelligence. The exhibition will be on view from 27 August to 4 October at their space in Banjara Hills.
Gallerist Rekha Lahoti says, “I’m very happy to be presenting Nothing Arrives Unchanged, curated by Satyajit Dave. He is a fabulous curator, and we are super excited about the show. It is a sculptural show, and I think this is the first time in almost three years that we are presenting a purely sculptural exhibition at Kalakriti. The artists are fabulous, and it has been a process of a lot of thought, discussion and consideration to see what works and what comes together. Arunkumar H G’s practice looks at waste management and the possibilities of creating sculptures from waste materials. Asim Waqif, a Venice Biennale artist, brings a fabulously futuristic practice to the show. He is also from Hyderabad, so it is particularly special for us that this will be his first exhibition in the city. Salik Ansari, another artist with a Berlin Biennale background, brings a very different body of work. His works are highly specific in the way they need to be installed, and just putting them up on the walls is going to take almost two days, which itself makes the process interesting. Shanthamani Muddaiah is a very senior artist, whose work has been presented at the Bangalore airport and at several Biennales around the world. Tanmay Santra, from S N School of the University of Hyderabad, is a fabulously talented artist with a very distinctive practice. Shanthamani Muddaiah, Shweta Mansighigka, Guruvinayak Singh, and Pooja Iranna are all showing their works for the first time in Hyderabad. I’m looking forward to seeing all these works come together, and I’m super excited about the show.”
Gallery Address: Kalakriti Art Gallery, Plot 8-2-465/1, Road No 4, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad – 500034 Hours: Open everyday, 11 AM – 7 PM
