Maya: The gritty Dhaka experience all over again
If gritty artworks made out of everyday inanimate objects is your thing, look no further than Syed Muhammad Zakir’s solo exhibition ‘Maya’ at the Bengal Shilpalay which runs till 2 September
Art is a medium of expression for a creator. They may mean one thing to him or her but the unsuspecting audience may derive or arrive at another point altogether.
But that doesn't take away the intrinsic value of any certain artwork: eliciting some emotion in the viewer's mind; and no art means the same thing to two people.
In that light, the installation art exhibition that I recently visited, titled 'Maya,' at Bengal Shilpalay, left me… 'clueless.' Maya is Syed Muhammad Zakir's - an alum of Charukala, Dhaka University - solo exhibition and will run till 2 September.
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The echoing halls of the fourth floor of Bengal Shilpalay was intensively decorated with Zakir's installations, which he made using the most ordinary objects – tarpaulin, children's toys, scrapped electronics, tree branches, construction items and whatnot. The array of materials used to create his arts were rather overwhelming to my senses.
Some felt jarring, some incomprehensible and some were simply too ordinary. It's not like every ordinary object passes for "inspiration" for art.
"I've created these arts using whatever I could lay my hands on. I gathered these used objects from parks, streets, fields and so on," confirmed Zakir, adding that his "art" were in fact not much more than slapping dissimilar objects together.
While they weren't – clearly – very artsy, some installations, however, gripped me. As space isn't an issue at Shilpalay, a humongous rib cage-like installation is being featured there. It's made of coconut tree branches, as ribs, attached to a spine made of cement with industrial nuts and bolts.
For one thing, the said exhibit fulfilled an installation's purpose, which is to help the audience interact with it. Interaction aside, what it means or says is not clear – not subtle, just not clear.
"The materials give me ideas; I don't plan any of it ahead," the artist said. Well, isn't that exactly how "installation art" works? I wondered. "Those coconut tree branches felt like ribs to me. I picked them up from Dhanmondi lake and got down to work," he added.
Right next to the supposed rib cage lies a mound of… nothing. I mean there is something there but I don't know what exactly.
"I saw an empty space here and used it. These piled up concrete symbolises a cosmic particle that hit the ground, hurtling in from outer space," he said. But no, I felt nothing as such.
'Last Plantation,' a dead tree made from rods, was a nice touch. According to the artist, the metal symbolises how our intervention is disrupting the delicate balance of nature. This, although unconventional, I took his word for. "Nature and man-made objects like concrete or metal coming together and becoming something unnatural is the message here."
The street-life is a recurring motif of 'Maya'. In Dhaka, the gritty "street-life" experience is an inevitability. We'd rather go to an exhibition to find respite from that, but sadly, I was reminded more of it.
As some of Zakir's – actual, hand painted – drawings also hung on the hall walls, gazing at them I was able to escape from all the exhibits reminding me of how our entire city is strangled with these objects.
For what it's worth, you can still visit 'Maya' as it will continue for some more time, but you should go to watch gritty art, if that's to your liking.
