The centerpiece of Atul Dodiya's haunting New York solo debut show is an installation titled "Broken Branches," composed of nine tall, glass-fronted wooden cabinets. Each is filled with well-worn objects, including photographs, tools, human bones and handmade prosthetic limbs.
The tools belonged to this artist's father, now dead, a building contractor who in 1938 moved from the Indian provinces to Bombay to establish a more prosperous business and a new home for his family. Other items — a 1970's photograph of the Arte Povera artist Mimo Palladino in Manhattan, for example — relate to Mr. Dodiya's development as an artist with an international presence, as does the vitrine format itself, which has associations with Joseph Beuys.
2 May 2003
