Serpentine Gallery: Indian Highway

Title: Serpentine Gallery – Indian Highway

Rating (out of 100): 90

Mood: on the cusp of something new, travelling, investigational, curious, witty, introspective, sad

Website: http://www.serpentinegallery.org/2008/06/indian_highwaydecember_2008_fe_1.htmlTimeout / Culture Critic: http://www.timeout.com/london/art/event/124789/indian-highway.html / http://www.culturecritic.co.uk/exhibitions/indian-highway/

The Serpentine Gallery’s new show, Indian Highway (http://www.serpentinegallery.org/2008/06/indian_highwaydecember_2008_fe_1.html) is quite interesting and beautiful. Like the show at the Saatchi Gallery, it focuses on contemporary art coming from a country that has thousands of years of history. The exhibition showcases the works of 20 artists, some more well-known than others, who hail from India. Unlike the Saatchi Gallery show, Indian Highway includes a large amount of video art. Significantly for me (one who usually doesn’t really appreciate or like video art), the show includes 3 separate rooms dedicated to video art that are indeed collages of life and very interesting.

What usually bores me about video art is how long it takes to play out the sequence that you are watching. Some may say that the audience must work to get the meaning of art, but for me, most video art is just too much work and not enough reward. But, the video art in Indian Highway is different. It lends itself to being engaged with. I especially liked the video art in the Steps Away from Oblivion minishow (8 video circuit) as well as Amar Kanwar’s The Lighting Testimonies. I also loved the room dedicated to Bose Krishnamachari’s Ghost/Transmemoir installation which showcases multiple mini videos in an atmospheric installation playing at the same time and creating a cacophony of sounds that will be very familiar to anybody living in a big city. It is the noise created by the dramas of multiple lives being lived at the same time. What is special about this specific installation is not only that the videos are housed within larger canisters that create a certain mood, but also that they come with headphones.

Aside from the video art, there are several other artists worth mention:

* Nikhil Chopra’s evocative photos – beautifully shot containing elements of grace and tragedy and endlessly interesting

* Dayanita Singh’s blue photos – gorgeous combining various hues of blues interspersed with golden yellow; urban photographs with an old masters’ colour palate

* MF Husain’s Rape of India colourful and engaging paintings

* Nalini Malani’s colourful and interesting work that is illuminated and has an airy quality

* Jitish Kallat – uses a technique that creates almost a 3D effect (albeit blurry); beautiful colours and use of light

* Sakshi Gupta – metal and feather blanket – very intricate and beautiful – like a textile that could be used to decorate a palace; not to mention the great poetry that the artists uses to introduce the blanket to the audience

Overall a very interesting show and one quite different ultimately (in scale but also in its heavy use of video art) from the art of its big neighbour at the Saatchi Gallery.