26/11, ALTBL, Bangalore- an exhibition; looking back to 2010

 Around the year 2010 Bangalore saw an increase in contemporary art events and there were many more new galleries opened around the turn of the decade. Some of the spaces still seemed elusive for those artists who were lesser known or beginners. Some alternative venues and spaces have formed by then such as Samuha and Shanti Road 1 were a couple of them. The ALTBL was conceived in the same order, as an alternative art space, an art collective, and an interactive space for photographers and artists to meet and exhibit their work in an informal manner. The objective of ALTBL was to function as a facilitator between a set of stakeholders in the art world that include artists, connoisseurs, critics and writers, curators, gallery owners, and buyers. The show 26/11, the second event from ALTBL, held during 26-28 November 2010 was a humble step towards this.

26/11 was much more than a coincidence. When ALTBL planned a show in November, this title provided a curatorial scope, with a relevant context to reflect upon. 26/11, as all know was not just another political event but a significant one that stands or points to a set of problems that imply both the historical as well as contemporary concerns of the subcontinent. In a sense, it had formed a parable for our times. It was something that should not have happened. So this irony in this incident was a strong element for artists to reflect upon. Thus 26/11, as an exhibition, formed a platform to bring divergent art practitioners into a single context. The works included in the show echoed some underlying conflicts of our time. They had a set of codes or images that reflected certain social narratives of social realities of our times but are problematic in all aspects. 

My work in this show was titled 'Basic Alphabets'. It was a way of locating a set of visual options, and images that speak primary characteristics of a culture, to be precise 'conflict'. Conflict is a conceptual thread that runs through most of my works since 2000. The exhibit in this show was a metaphor intended to reflect the implicit conflict within both the existing as well as evolving cultures. It seems to me that it is the protagonist himself who eventually turns out to be the antihero. This is the irony of our times.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_Sdbpe1-NbERAOJ36mIAAB2hFF8Ot2ka/view?usp=sharing