Finding talent in a country of more than a billion people is painstakingly difficult, especially considering how few art schools we have and how out-of-sync the schools are with contemporary art. At one point of time, the person tipped to be a promising young artist had to be one who had some sort of stamp of foreign art education. It could be a residency, a short-term course, anything. The fact that an institution in America or Europe had given them a certificate inspired a certain confidence in gallerists that this person did actually have talent that could sustain more than one work or two. It’s changed a little now. It’s no longer a bad thing to flaunt an entirely Indian background in your works. Maybe it’s just a reaction to the fact that India’s become “cooler” and that to have a recognisably Indian aesthetic isn’t quite as cringe-inducing anymore. Plus, if you’re aiming at the international scene, there’s not much of an impression to be made with short courses and/or degrees from not-so-well-known institutions. Being graphically sexual, however, is highly recommended, regardless of what kind of aesthetic tradition you’re planning to access. For one thing, it’ll get right wing knickers in a twist and so ensure a certain amount of publicity. Plus, it makes the artist seem modern.
The line between pretentiously self-indulgent and relevantly provocative is a subtle one. A lot of Mithu Sen’s older works are great examples of the latter, which is why it’s so disappointing that her new show, “Black Candy (iforgotmypenisathome)” is the former. I couldn’t help wondering whether most of the works in “Black Candy” would have made it into the show if Sen had to display the exhibition in the tiny sliver of space that was the old Chemould instead of this new and cavernous Chemould Prescott Road. The best part of the show is the idea of displaying the works like they’re sliding doors and windows to communicate the idea of façades and revelations. Sen’s intention was to create a suite of paintings, accompanied by soundtracks, that empathise with the difficulty of living up to stereotypes for men in particular. In the past, Sen has found inventive and curious ways of talking about sexuality. Here, however, the attempt to fuse homesickness with discomfort within gender stereotypes is clumsy. The soundscapes sound silly and add nothing to the drawings, most of which try too hard to be provocative. In “Black Candy”, her imagery is obvious and frequently predictable so that the works feels stale within moments of entering the gallery.
Sen has a talent for fusing delicacy with chilling violence. Unfortunately, this shows up in too few of the works. The impact of her small works, like the one that shows a bit of skin caught on a wooden clothespin, is so much stronger than the large ones. Most of the life-size pieces lack subtlety and don’t showcase Sen’s ability to create something that is pretty and yet discomfiting, gross but delicate. This isn’t to say nothing in “Black Candy” is memorable. There are a few works that are powerful but they are almost smothered by the mediocre ones that surround them. There’s a neediness to “Black Candy”, a desperate desire to be disturbing, and it ends up feeling like a child’s tantrum: forgettable.
The line between pretentiously self-indulgent and relevantly provocative is a subtle one. A lot of Mithu Sen’s older works are great examples of the latter, which is why it’s so disappointing that her new show, “Black Candy (iforgotmypenisathome)” is the former. I couldn’t help wondering whether most of the works in “Black Candy” would have made it into the show if Sen had to display the exhibition in the tiny sliver of space that was the old Chemould instead of this new and cavernous Chemould Prescott Road. The best part of the show is the idea of displaying the works like they’re sliding doors and windows to communicate the idea of façades and revelations. Sen’s intention was to create a suite of paintings, accompanied by soundtracks, that empathise with the difficulty of living up to stereotypes for men in particular. In the past, Sen has found inventive and curious ways of talking about sexuality. Here, however, the attempt to fuse homesickness with discomfort within gender stereotypes is clumsy. The soundscapes sound silly and add nothing to the drawings, most of which try too hard to be provocative. In “Black Candy”, her imagery is obvious and frequently predictable so that the works feels stale within moments of entering the gallery.
Sen has a talent for fusing delicacy with chilling violence. Unfortunately, this shows up in too few of the works. The impact of her small works, like the one that shows a bit of skin caught on a wooden clothespin, is so much stronger than the large ones. Most of the life-size pieces lack subtlety and don’t showcase Sen’s ability to create something that is pretty and yet discomfiting, gross but delicate. This isn’t to say nothing in “Black Candy” is memorable. There are a few works that are powerful but they are almost smothered by the mediocre ones that surround them. There’s a neediness to “Black Candy”, a desperate desire to be disturbing, and it ends up feeling like a child’s tantrum: forgettable.
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