Doing It With Mirrors

Anju Dodiya's new installation work at the Baroda palace has set new paradigms for art display

PICTURE SPEAK

REGAL RESONANCE:Throne of Frost at the Durbar Hall "The ornate hall is a part of installation, not just its setting" ANJU DODIYA

"In all my years as a press photographer in Gujarat, I have never seen such a lavish opening nor such a spectacular exhibition," said an Ahmedabad photographer. Nor was he the only one gushing about the show. Senior artists from Amit Ambalal and Ghulam Mohammed Shiekh to younger one's like Manisha Parekh (to list just a few) were all equally impressed by the sheer magnificence of the work and the scale of its splendorous setting.

Mumbai based Anju Dodiya, who has primarily been a much admired water colourist, was reticent about transiting to the multi-media conceptual-installation mode till recently. "I know my husband Atul is completely taken by it for some time now," she admits, "But I had to conceive of a scheme and setting that would require such work. I did not wish to do installations just because it was the flavour of the global season."

A chance visit to the Baroda palace with gallery owner Amit Judge last year provided just that impetus. "I was quite taken by the sheer opulence of this Durbar Hall and decided to work out a plan that would make it a part of my installation, not just its outer setting," says the artist.

PICTURE SPEAK

MULTIPLE REFLECTIONS: Anju Dodiya; and (right) Medieval European motifs that she employs

The Throne of Frost is a rectangular arrangement of double-faced wooden boxes with water colour images on the inner side and plush embroidered mattresses/tapestries on the other. On the floor space enclosed by these boxes lie large shards of glass mirrors reflecting the chandeliers and the ornate ceiling above and the images of the water colour drawings on the inner surface of the boxes.

As you walk around the hall taking in the opulence of the architecture on one hand and the details of Dodiya's double-faced boxes on the other, you never quite see the water colour images up close. The somewhat elusive painted surfaces are behind the side of the boxes facing the viewer, you can only see them from across the rectangular island of glass shards, or at times reflected partially on the carpet of broken mirrors below. Critic Nancy Adjania describes the scene: "Our curious eyes are chilled by a lake of broken glass, the ruins of a history that eludes reconstruction. In these glacial shards are reflected fragments of the charcoal drawings that the tapestries shield from direct view: portraits of princesses dressed in paper robes and holding pencil sceptres; a queen simmering in a dress of death; a bird-king stuffed for a taxidermist's delight, clowns and acrobats setting continents on fire." All quite an eye full indeed.

And if you wish to decipher the images with all their obscure references, quite a mind full too. Then that is the problem with (or a paradigm of) post-modernism: it tends to presume that viewers would be informed about the arcane symbolism that artists tend to employ in their secret language of visual associations. Dodiya, for one, has been seeking her images in medieval European legends, myths and history for some time now. All Dodiya's images in the installation are drawn from those sources while her title might allude to the computer game Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne released by Microsoft in 2003. However, let that not discourage you, the work works just as well as a purely retinal experience.

The exhibition will be re-configured at Bodhi Art, Mumbai, from April 7 to May 31.

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