Shutter Speed

Atul Dodiya has sold all 12 works even before his latest show opens, but regrets the commodification of art.

What do you see when you look at the images above: roller shutters half open or half shut? For Atul Dodiya, one of India’s most celebrated contemporary artists, the shutter, which presents the viewer with a varying degree of concealment or disclosure, is a metaphor that reflects a state of mind. For the artist, it also serves as a canvas on which he can play with a mélange of imagery.

Dodiya’s much sought-after roller shutters have been narrating vivid stories for nearly a decade now. (Interestingly, there’s a recurring motif even in the works of his wife and fellow artist Anju Dodiya—in her case, of a necklace.) And all the 12 paintings that form his latest suite of work, Malevich Matters & Other Shutters, have already been acquired, the artist tells Open. Even before the opening of the exhibition on 5 March. But he implores both his admirers and critics to fathom the relevance of his recent work in non-monetary terms instead.

“The spiritual aspect of art reflected in the works of Rabindranath Tagore, Abanindranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose, Paul Cézanne and Kazimir Malevich has gone missing. Art has become a commodity,” bemoans the 50-year-old artist, “I pray that my paintings initiate a certain degree of curiosity and change the way we look at and celebrate art.”

In the Malevich Matters… series, Dodiya says, the audience will see glimpses of the schemas of American great Jasper Johns, the dark and gaudy colours reminiscent of late Indian artist Bhupen Khakhar, the print-making of German artist Albrecht Dürer, the spatial concept or the ‘slash’ of Argentine painter and sculptor Lucio Fontana, and the abstract figures of Suprematist art from Russia’s Kazimir Malevich. With his mastery and playfulness of pigments on tall, coarse canvases, Dodiya has attempted to bring together the spirituality of all these greats.

Malevich Matters & Other Shutters will show at Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi from 5 March to 10 April.

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Arindam Mukherjee