I have been thinking a lot about Mumbai and India after the terror attacks that took place there a few weeks back, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. The timing of the Serpentine Gallery's new exhibition Indian Highway therefore could not be more perfect, as it attempts to pack the entire contemporary art scene of an incredibly diverse subcontinent into that cozy former tea house in Hyde Park. However, Adrian Searle was decidedly unimpressed with the show:
This exhibition makes large claims about including artists who address
contemporary Indian society, environmentalism, sectarianism,
globalisation, gender, postcolonialism, sexuality and class. This is a
wagon train of pieties, and the Serpentine gallery is really not the
space for an exhibition that attempts this kind of scope. It can do
little more than signal preoccupations, and what is signalled is not
necessarily addressed. The show is also described as a "snapshot". Who
needs snapshots?
Laura Cumming, by contrast, found much to engage her interest, especially in the art that addresses the legacy of Britain's colonization of India like that of Subodh Gupta (pictured above):
The most immediate evocation of both here and there, though, is the
office that fills an entire gallery: a stage set of battered old
chairs, worn desks, filing cabinets and cupboards disgorging quantities
of mysterious files, all manacled and padlocked as if the system could
never be dismantled. Conflating overtones of the Raj administration
with the bureaucracy of India's own civil service, it ramifies
Rousseau's great lament that man is born free but is everywhere in
chains. Its maker, Subodh Gupta, is commonly described as India's
Damien Hirst, partly because he makes installations but mainly because
of his record-breaking prices. His work tends to be one-line,
quick-impact and monumental, so it is no surprise that it is bought by
collectors such as Charles Saatchi and François Pinault. The Serpentine
piece feels less slick than usual.
I myself know next to nothing about contemporary Indian art, so I would welcome the opportunity to get a taste. In lieu of a trip to London I'll instead just page through the Guardian's online gallery of the exhibition, and dream of seeing the riotous Mumbai nightscape (captured in the show by photographer Dayanita Singh) in person some day.
