Important Notice

In creating the 21 lurid prints that make up the series Tales of Amnesia, Chitra Ganesh has drawn images from the Amar Chitra Katha, a series of comic books dating back to the 1960s that illustrated and circulated ancient Indian epics, myths and legends for mass consumption. In her provocative version of these comics, however, the artist locates and lays bare issues of gender and sexuality that are tactfully tiptoed around in the myths from... In creating the 21 lurid prints that make up the series Tales of Amnesia, Chitra Ganesh has drawn images from the Amar Chitra Katha, a series of comic books dating back to the 1960s that illustrated and circulated ancient Indian epics, myths and legends for mass consumption. In her provocative version of these comics, however, the artist locates and lays bare issues of gender and sexuality that are tactfully tiptoed around in the myths from which she draws her vignettes. Reorganizing the images and adding subversive snippets of text to each, Ganesh highlights the ills that the colonization of the truth, and the repression of some of its aspects in the name of morality, can engender.

"In her depictions of women in the comic book Tales of Amnesia (2002 – 07), Chitra Ganesh queries and queers explanations of suicides, accidents, deaths and disappearances of women in history and myth… Her process of automatic writing is drawn from a rich reading of myths, and a detective-like hunch for critical points in the story. Repressions and suppressions in history – that are also a part of myth and memory – surface… This subtext of disappearance in Tales of Amnesia is telling of the artist's particular politics of making explicit and colloquial those moments in history and myth that tend to be dealt with in euphemisms. She is also drawing parallels with disappearances and missing people within present day imperialisms" (Zasha Colah, "The Famed Junglees of the Oral Tradition", Of this Tale, I cannot guarantee a single word, Royal College of Art Galleries exhibition catalogue, London, 2008).

In the present lot, two episodes from this comic series, the artist brings to the surface issues of gender and sexuality that are traditionally left unspoken and unquestioned. Ganesh believes it is important to expose these issues through her practice, particularly in light of the alarming way in which cultural repression can engender personal repression and lead to the self-perpetuating relegation of such matters to the subconscious. The artist notes, "I'm fascinated by how traditional mythology/folklore celebrates sex and violence, but only to instill notions of appropriate behavior and gender expression by punishing those who attempt to transgress societal norms." (as quoted in One Way or Another: Asian American Art Now, Asia Society exhibition catalogue, New York, 2006, unpaginated).

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