Important Notice

Surendran Nair’s works act as a vehicle, one that places complex messages about identity and society at the forefront. The present lot is an early work from his Cuckoonebulopolis series, an ode to the perfect world between heaven and earth that the Greek playwright Aristophanes conjured in his work, Birds. Negotiating the tumultuous relationship between the ideal and the real, Nair creates a charged space on his canvases for his... Surendran Nair’s works act as a vehicle, one that places complex messages about identity and society at the forefront. The present lot is an early work from his Cuckoonebulopolis series, an ode to the perfect world between heaven and earth that the Greek playwright Aristophanes conjured in his work, Birds. Negotiating the tumultuous relationship between the ideal and the real, Nair creates a charged space on his canvases for his socio-political commentary.

Within the ethos of this series, the artist approaches contemporary identity through the form of actors taking to stage. The present lot features a partially made-up actor in profile, wearing a strap-on scorpion’s tail and strung with flowers and bells. He has pricked his little finger with his ‘tail’ – a possible reference to the legend that scorpions, when faced with imminent danger, sting themselves to death rather than submit to external aggressors. With regard to this painting, Chaitanya Sambrani observes, “Here, the nude male actor is placed in an intermediate space bordered seemingly by the arcades of Rajasthani architecture, staring into infinity even as he pricks his own finger on the barb of a costume/contraption representing the scorpion’s tail. Incidentally, the Sanskrit word for actor: patra, also connotes vessel or container. The figures are thus cast as vehicles in an ‘unreal’ or hyperreal theatrical space that embraces many histories and traditions in order to get under the skin of contemporary reality.” (Chaitanya Sambrani, Under the Skin of Simulation: Three Contemporary Painters, Berlin: The Fine Art Resource, 2003)

“I was never religious, but I always loved the artistic works of the religious imagination.” - SURENDRAN NAIR

Read More
Artist Profile
Other works of this artist in: this auction  |  entire site