Cidade de Goa by Charles Correa

 

Amol Patil at Project88

In this exhibition, Amol Patil presents to us the sensation of manual scavenging. Patil demonstrates the morphings of the scavenging body in its corporeal sensations through his drawings, prints, sounds and sculptures. 

A further version of these works was exhibited at the Kochi Biennale 2022-23, the drawings of which can be seen here. One of the hallmarks of the show, the most compelling, is what I call the cloud-man, what Prasad (Shetty) calls the frog-man (last picture in the blog). Here, two legs come out of a thick dust cloud. The position of the legs indicate that the person lays ground-ward. In most probability, the body seems unconscious. A slight chance that he may also have passed away. Coalesced into the sewer sludge, the human is no longer separate from it. Engulfed into the darkness of this excreted cloud, the sliver of the subconscious body is a moment in which Patil asks questions of labour, dignity, dreams and dust. 

The settling of sludge on the skin of human body is a sensation that centers the entire exhibition. The surface laden with dust and debris moves perhaps in order to release itself of the discomfort within the folds of its crevices. Making you hold your gaze to the next motion of the body, Patil evokes the visceral sensation of being inside the manhole. 

Many of the sculptures are put together by compacting the dust, and embedding parts of the human body into them. The metal casting alludes to the forced unision of body and experience, not necessarily desired. The casting, is then the story of caste, and how one gets moulded into it. The room is subtly filled with the dreams and desires that erupt from within these clouds - whether darkness or desire - is something that the viewers are compelled to carry out of the gallery.

Nasreen Mohamedi exhibition at CSMVS