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Lot 120

 

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The seed for Atul Dodiya’s Cracks in Mondrian series was sown when, to deal with the shock of the catastrophic earthquakes that hit Gujarat in 2001, the artist turned to the works of the Dutch artist Piet Mondrian whose neatly demarcated works spoke to him of “the hope of spirituality and human dignity, an ordered consciousness to place against the danger of irrationality, violence and the threat of extinction.” (Artist quoted in Ranjit... The seed for Atul Dodiya’s Cracks in Mondrian series was sown when, to deal with the shock of the catastrophic earthquakes that hit Gujarat in 2001, the artist turned to the works of the Dutch artist Piet Mondrian whose neatly demarcated works spoke to him of “the hope of spirituality and human dignity, an ordered consciousness to place against the danger of irrationality, violence and the threat of extinction.” (Artist quoted in Ranjit Hoskote, “Framing the Title Deeds: Reflections on Atul Dodiya’s ‘Cracks in Mondrian’”, Atul Dodiya: Cracks in Mondrian, New York: Bose Pacia, 2005) However, upon seeing the works he was struck by the startling resemblance between the cracks which had developed in the works and the fatal ruptures recently created in the earth of Gujarat by the disaster.

As is typical of the series, Dodiya exhibits uncharacteristic restraint in his handling of the canvas. He leaves swathes of it blank in the process of transposing a scant amount of his own elements onto Mondrian’s framework. Two rare pops of colour are provided by setting off Mondrian’s primary yellow rectangle against the pink daub representing a Mughal suba (province). In addition to the questions of colonialism, ownership and art-historical discourse which all works in the series raise, art critic Ranjit Hoskote asserts that the present lot also “functions as a repository for the memories of facade damage.” The work draws from the artist’s deep photographic archive of crevices and fissures in architecture to express his “feeling of empathy for buildings, a sensitivity for the afflictions that the skin of a building can suffer, whether mould, moisture, weak plaster or termite attack.” (Hoskote)

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