Spotlight on Kausik Mukhopadhyay

Kausik Mukhopadhyay was born in 1960, was trained in Shantiniketan and lives in Mumbai. He is a recipient of a 1990-91 Fellowship at Kanoria Centre for the Art, Ahmedabad; a 1994-95 Fellowship for Artists Working in India from the Inlaks Foundation; and a 2002 Charles Wallace Grant for residency at Gasworks, London.
His work has been exhibited throughout India at galleries and museums in Bangalore, Bangladesh, Bombay, Calcutta and New Delhi, among others. In 1998 Mukhopadhyay exhibited in Presence of the Past – A Response to the British Museum Exhibition “Enduring Image” as a Gift to India on its Celebration of 50 Years of Independence, NCPA, Bombay. And in 2000, he exhibited in Art for the Art District, a site specific work for the Kalaghoda Artfest, Bombay. Internationally, Mukhopadhyay’s work has shown in “Century City – Art and Culture in the Metropolis” at Tate Modern in London (2001), at the Stephen Lawrence Gallery of Greenwich University, London (2002), “Edge of Desire,” in Perth, Ausralia (2004), and at Tamarind Art, New York in 2006 (“Reverse Depth”), and again in 2007 in “Maps, Metaphors and Mythologies”.

Mukhopadhyay’s installation art at first appears whimsical and childlike, but upon closer consideration, one is struck by a clever sophistication in its underlying message. Much of his work is composed of found objects given a second life by being taken apart and put together again in a new way. In a culture where recycling is a viable way of life for many in the lower classes, those who cannot afford the latest gadgets and appliances often find ingenious ways of reusing discarded objects to meet their needs. With a tongue-in-cheek humor, Mukhopadhyay aims his reuse commodities at the bourgeoisie, who are ever on the lookout for the latest fad, the newest technique or process on the never-ending quest to outdo their neighbor.

His 2002-03 exhibit entitled “Toofun Mail” is a train made up of pots and pans and an electrical motor, going around a circular track at a snail’s pace. A little wooden hammer taps out in comical slo-mo rhythm, neutralizing the powerful image of the locomotive, India’s first colonial machine other than the printing press.

“City of Spectacle,” a cartoon-like representation of Mumbai, was exhibited at Tamarind Art in 2006. Composed of wooden blocks covered with architectural renderings and toys brought to life with electrical contraptions, this city of whirligigs, clinking hammers, bobbing doll heads and flying rickshaws sits atop three eight-foot high pedestals which, when viewed from below, appear to be a complex and urbane metropolis. One views the city as an inaccessible icon—as it must appear to the working class responsible for building its foundations. When one ascends the attached ladders to view the exhibit close-up, the exposed wooden blocks and electrical devices are revealed. Of the exhibit, Mukhopadhyay says, “Mumbai is going through a frenzied state of urban development. The exclusive areas with its malls and housing societies, highly protected and polished, stands a little away from the rest of the city. This thickly populated city can have these developments only by pushing away the less privileged others out. The city loses its gloss when looked from a closer quarter. It reveals wooden blocks with pasted paper and mechanical devices.”

Mukhopadhyay’s 2008 works include makeshift war and light machines put together with miscellaneous parts from found objects, at once frightening and comical. “Public Sculpture for Ants,” presents an exhibit of tiny objects, none more than four inches high, taking the viewer back to a time when such objects invoked a feeling of fascination and magic, and at the same time giving one a fresh perspective on modern day “art.”

In the most recent work at Tamarind Art, “Remix,” the audience gets to participate by looking through seven separate magnifying glasses at various written messages, which can be changed by moving wheels on the exhibit. Mukhopadhyay says of his latest work, “The place I used to go for breakfast had a board on the wall. I stared at it until the food was served, for lack of anything better to do. It read GOD IS GREAT followed by DO NOT SPIT and in the end GRADE 3. The last line is obvious, the kind of permit (the restaurant received) from the city authority. But the relation between the statements remains elusive. So I started to read it more carefully to find out any hidden meaning which might be evading me. I read from left-to-right then right-to-left, from up-to-down, then from down-to-up. I tried all possible combinations and came out with new insights in these few words—some of them highly philosophical (DO GOD SPIT), some blasphemous (GOD IS SPIT), some arrogant declarations (SPIT IS GREAT) and a lot of nonsensical ones (DO IS GREAT, GREAT IS NOT).”

The seven segments of “Remix” are titled “Mera Bharta Mahan/ Horn Ok Please,” “God is Everywhere/Keep Safe Distance,” “God is Great/Do Not Spit,” “Mera Bharta Mahan/I Love India,” “India Shining,” “I Love India/Phir Lotke Ana,” and “Signature of the artists: Kausik/Mohua.”

The exhibit gives the audience an opportunity to view the written messages that surround us as we go about our day with a new outlook. With random moving wheels, words connect in new ways which “make a lot of sense and nonsense.” Like a “Nutty Professor” with a message, Mukhopadhyay relentlessly makes us laugh and investigate and think.