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Installation view of SHEELA GOWDA’s solo exhibition at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, 2017. Courtesy the artist and Ikon Gallery.
Sheela Gowda’s recent installation at Birmingham’s Ikon Gallery was specific to the space it occupied, but also exceeded it. Through her use and arrangement of materials related to her home city of Bangalore, she reacted to the gallery—architecturally quirkier than the average white cube—to generate an equivocally symbolic mixture of elements that belonged not to any one place, but could be transplanted into diverse contexts and retain its essence.
Mounted on a back wall in the first of the gallery’s three rooms was a blown up image of a group of lawyers, their eyes covered by black bars and in a state of unrest as police try to restrain them. The image is taken from one of a series of infamous events in India where lawyers attacked journalists with stones and bottles in response to unfavourable reportage. Indeed, just left of center, a young advocate holds a large rock above his head, ready to hurl. Possibly as a function of its enlargement, the image was marked with fractal-like patterns, similar to those in newspaper print, or perhaps a television screen. This created the effect of a separating window; stones left on the gallery floor mirrored those on the photographed street, connecting the two spaces and extending the meaning of the event beyond its immediate regional context.
Partial installation view of SHEELA GOWDA’s Properties, 2017, at the artist’s solo exhibition at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, 2017. Courtesy the artist and Ikon Gallery.
In the center of the room lay a much-folded mass of red fabric next to a frame of black metal poles, more of which rose crookedly from the ground, with toothed lengths of the same material—like bunting—hanging from them. The result resembled a deconstructed “shamiana,” a kind of tent used in India to host events. While the symbolic value of the red was ambiguous—ranging in its possible significations from trade unionism to physical violence—the detachment of the formal elements from their function as a shelter and host to celebrations was clear.
There was a similar sense of detachment in the central room that connected the other two. White objects with industrial origins—rubble, fragmented cinder blocks, construction wire and mesh—lined the walls and recalled Gowda’s long-held interest in labor practices. Despite these highly utilitarian items, there was a pronounced playfulness to the space, a sense of a worker’s free hand eschewing, or even countering, functionality in favor of arbitrary creativity. Rocks were stacked with no apparent method, frames suggesting the outlines of potential structures stood at unfeasible angles, vertical wires were often capped with single stones, while others curved in close proximity to create fluctuating forms of unexpected beauty.
Beyond this white intermediary space, suggestive of construction without specific aims, was a final room filled with color, and the apparent potential for purposeful creation. Here, Gowda took inspiration from Bandlis—metal bowls frequently used by Indian construction workers to carry materials such as concrete upon their heads. Many such objects, cut and filed by Gowda from flattened metal drums, occupied the gallery floor, but so too did the offcuts produced along with them. Often folded into complex forms that resemble models of sophisticated contemporary buildings, their sharp, symmetrical beauty contrasted with the smooth symmetry of the worker’s tools.
Installation view of SHEELA GOWDA’s Properties, 2017, at the artist’s solo exhibition at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, 2017. Courtesy the artist and Ikon Gallery.
Gowda’s interest in labor practices, particular those of women, was represented here also. The bandli is not simply a tool, but rather an extension of the worker’s body, and its multiplication here evoked the sheer scale of womanpower required to develop a fast-growing metropolis like Bangalore—India’s third largest city. Many of the elements in the non-specific, symbolic urban environment drew attention to the creative properties of labor that, almost lost amid considerable toil, contribute to the building of a city and society. However, as in the earlier image of one pillar of a healthy society (the law) violently attacking another (the press), the intimation of ugliness lurked beneath the idealized structures of the city. Easy to miss among the white walls and objects of the second room, one chalky stone—hidden among others—bore three blood-red fingerprints.
Sheela Gowda’s new installation works are on view at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, until September 3, 2017.
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