An evening at Palette
Boris Neislony performed at the Palette art gallery, Delhi last night. And so did Inder Salim and Monali Meher. Boris’ performance was a puzzling one. What was this man trying to do? What was he showing? He played an audio cassette on a regular portable music system and then moved to the sounds. He didn’t move much, just a shoulder wiggle or the slow motion of hands or rubbing off something from behind his ear or drawing something from within him. The sounds seemed like a hurried conversation, the steel sound of someone drawing a sword out of a scabbard, the muffled barking of a dog. The man’s expression was intense, full of concentration and a bit menacing. The performance inspired curiosity and silence. I tried to feel what he was feeling, acute sensations; but I didn’t want to try too hard, I wanted to be affected naturally. And that didn’t happen.
After a while, I left the performance to linger in the open terrace in a dense crowd with my friend. A Swedish student came and told my us that he was studying Persian. Hmm… A guy sitting in
Monali Meher was droning on in a room when suddenly a man banged a NaGaDa. Everyone, followed the drummer, Pied Piper style, and soon found themselves, almost unwittingly led to an auction room. On a throne, right in front, sat Kamlesh and Suraj. Inder Salim was holding an auction, selling prints of photographs taken of Kamlesh ki Rasoi and Mochi ki Dukan – Suraj, the cobbler’s roadside shop and his wife’s kitchen at home. What a Brave thing to do! There could be any outcome. Was this man expecting people to bid and pay for charity or for art? The money would go to the poor family. Inder Salim introduced the white-haired emaciated cobbler sitting on a throne in front of gentlemen and ladies sitting with fine wine glasses and jolted them out a mood of self-exploration, alternative ideas and art. Maybe not art.
The bespectacled Kamlesh sat on her throne and looked around through her thick thick glasses. Inder Salim held up the prints of the cobbler mending a shoe, the soot-smudged walls of the kitchen with tiffin boxes and bottles pegged on nails, the grandson sitting while his mother and grandmother served him his meal in the kitchen, a young couple standing at the cobbler’s shop and the photograph of the cobbler’s toolkit. Beautiful prints, quite similar to photographs that NIFT students take all the time for their class assignments, each print selling for six to twelve thousand. Images of the cobbler shop we pass everyday, the kitchen in every poor home. What was the selling point? The familiarity of the photographs? To some people, a fine photograph is defined by a very noticeable play of light and shade or an unconventional angle such as a worm’s vision. Occasionally, someone in the auction room said ‘C’mon people, it’s for a good cause!’ Was that it? Maybe that’s a good reason enough. What was the identity of the auction? I don’t know. I must say the auction went off very well, with lots of humour, happiness and energy. I absolutely enjoyed it. Salim Inder did a great job of conducting the auction and introducing Suraj and Kamlesh.
And after that I met a man who had seen U.F.Os. And another who was a dissident astronomer. After goodbyes, the astronomer returned, declared “And by the way, I am expert in this subject!” and went off.
March 31st, 2008 - 11:14
thanks a lot for wrting all this,
the most important point of the auction was made clear from the word go,
that the auction money would go the homeless family for the construction of a
small shanty in their locality. and fianlly that did happen. Besides that, there were many layers which too got highlighted, for example, the relationship between the audience, the subject in the art work and the lilfe out there.
Interesting, that the couple almost disappeared when the auction began,
but at the end of the day it was hard material that came out of it, that way it call it a sucess, and you too have found it that way. thanks again
with lot of love and regards, inder salim