Erasure | Curated by Susanta Mandal: D-53 Defence Colony, New Delhi

Vadehra Art Gallery is pleased to announce a group show titled Erasure, curated by Susanta Mandal, featuring work by himself along with artists Atul Dodiya, Anju Dodiya, Sudhir Patwardhan, Gulammohammed Sheikh, Dayanita Singh, Ayisha Abraham, Mithu Sen and Ranbir Kaleka.

In Erasure, artist Susanta Mandal initiates an exchange of ideas around the thematics of the creative process through an exhibition format, inviting artists whom he respects and admires to weigh in on their artistic sources and cognitive triggers. Mandal identifies process as the crux of creation while considering how its relationship to art- making has evolved with as much precision and fervor as the diversifications in visual languages. From serving as an invisible structure in early art movements when artworks were posited as transcendental, author-less creations, to its present-day avatar as a fundamental feature or contextual aspect of post-modern art, he explores how ideas are formed in response to a range of fluxes through process, from assimilation and alienation to aggregation and erasure. As process becomes the catchword of content in the contemporary age, as how something is made gains more traction and weight in how one must feel about something, Mandal is interested in postulations of erasure – of a self-referential and self-editing intention that is in parts voluntary and involuntary – as an act of thinking.

Not only does the show explore the physicality of process as it culminates in a tangible end result, it also reflects on the discipline of history as an ideological tool that selectively structures the past and rewrites it at will, and the other more clinical and pathological process of dementia where the memory of the affected individual is tragically wiped out. In social and mass media,

For Mandal, actions of erasure are not only effected in the original strokes of creation but also in the revising and remembering of past acts, as is the case with an unstable mental prowess that attempts to re-construct its reality or a political maneuver to re-visualize identity, place and history while keeping certain objectives in focus. Moreover, historical erasure through the removal of traces has often been wielded as a tool for controlling the masses, by blurring collective memories and creating numbness thus resulting in a failure to recall our most vivid losses.

The illustrative breadth and thoughtful depth of Mandal’s point of view emerges as he complicates and engages with these core questions of process, which is multi-lateral and perfunctory yet authentically tied to ideology, in individual and collective contexts that are more importantly examined as tools of creation as well as of destruction. He asks: “Whose or what stories are being told? Whose or what pain is being acknowledged? Whose or what birth is celebrated? identities are finely erased and intolerances are layered as per old discriminatory practices on the basis of colour, caste, religion, gender and sexuality. Do we tend to forget some ideas, or is it required we forget for the comfort of our inner constitution? Who will decide, for the sake of truth, which version is unbiased?”

While the show is on view at the gallery, where we’re undertaking strict health, sanitization and social distancing measures to ensure the safety of our visitors, we’re happy to be able to make engaging with the show a virtual possibility as well. To do so, we’re embracing a new immersive 3D digital technology experience via Matterport on our website, which offers a multi-dimensional mapping of the show: An extended curatorial essay and a comprehensive exhibition PDF are also available on request. Please write to art@vadehraart.com or call us at +911146103550 to set up an appointment prior to your visit.