ABSTRACT
MASH Presents ‘Fragments of the Future’
Curated by Shalini Passi at Ajio Luxe Wkend 2025
10th – 12th January 2025 | Reliance Jio Garden, BKC, Mumbai
Mumbai, India – January 2025: MASH is thrilled to announce ‘Fragments of the Future,’ a curated art exhibition by Shalini Passi, taking place at Ajio Luxe Wkend 2025. This highly anticipated showcase will run from 10th to 12th January 2025 at Reliance Jio Garden, BKC, Mumbai.
An Artistic Odyssey Through Postmodern India
Fragments of the Future brings together a dynamic roster of artists who are redefining the boundaries of contemporary art in India. This innovative exhibition serves as a platform for dialogue and exploration, reflecting the nation’s socio-cultural transformation.
Featuring works by trailblazing artists such as G. Ravinder Reddy, Shambhavi, Probir Gupta, Waswo X. Waswo, Jagannath Panda, Pranati Panda, Vasudevam Akkitham, T. Venkenna, Narayan Biswas, Sunil Gawde, Dhruva Mistry, Manish Nai, Valay Gada, Gigi Scaria, Ranbir Kaleka, Teja Gavankar, Sachin George Sebastian, Manisha Gera Baswani, Vasudha Thozhur, Vibha Galhotra, Tom Vattakuzhy, Ankon Mitra, Dia Mehhta Bhupal, and Sonia Khurana.
The exhibition delves into pressing themes like identity, migration, urbanisation, and the interplay between technology and tradition. Each piece challenges conventional narratives, blurring the lines between abstraction, realism, and conceptualism.
Through diverse mediums — including painting, sculpture, photography, video art, and installations — these artists confront historical and contemporary issues, inviting viewers to question the status quo and engage in a thought-provoking dialogue about art’s role in an ever-changing society.
CONCEPTUAL NOTE
In the era of mobility and multifaceted definitions of contemporary, this exhibition brings together artists challenging and reimagining the status quo. Through diverse mediums and perspectives, the artists subvert traditional approaches to the conception of the value of Art. The works here intend to invite viewers to question established systems and engage in deeper dialogue about the role of art in rapidly transforming society. From grandeur history and mythology to the ethics of participatory practices, the shifting definitions of visual arts have undergone various transformations.
The presented artworks consider culture in a much broader sense as a multifunctional tool within society. As a tool for critical reflection, emotional resonance, and collective awareness, this exhibition celebrates the power of art to provoke thought, stir emotions, and inspire action in a time when meaning and connection are more essential than ever. Gigi Scaria, does so through his urban dialogues, subtly navigating social stratification and distantly guiding us to Jagannath Panda’s dystopian visions. And amidst these urban ramifications Sachin George Sebastian’s delicate sculptures and Valay Gada’s brass petals guide us home. While for Manisha Gera Baswani, visuals are a way to inquire and document collective experiences.
The ideology of the new — the newness in perception — sees sculptures no longer confined to the ground. They can be found on walls or suspended from ceilings, blurring the lines of where art exists today while Dia Bhupal introduces a new genre of photography, capturing immersive built environments with their architectural features, which can be considered sculptures. Alongside, Sunil Gawde utilizes the evolved term “sculpture” alongside installations. The long-standing debate on Art vs. Design seems to merge seamlessly, creating an entirely new genre within Art. From paintings to video art, kinetic sculptures to installations, Art has expanded. The Art & Design binary blurs as is evident in Teja Gavankar’s works.
We draw the line of today by comparing it with the past. In order to compare and validate something, we often look at its history as is seen in Waswo’s paintings which carry the aura of miniatures to contemporary identities. The political climate in our country today reflects a similar struggle over lineage and precedence. What has existed before us often validates our present. The regulations defining a sculpture are often rooted in the term’s historicity. Traditionally, a visual form of art needed to have a commemorative value or purpose. Vasudha Thozhur and Tom Vattakuzhy, through the interiority of their canvases, move away from this monumentalisation in painting and redefine the purpose of visual art with personal narratives and experiences. While Pranati Panda’s threads are an ode to the forming of an independent ‘self’.
The actual size of a sculpture and paintings was often augmented by the pedestal and frames, clearly defining its purpose and logic. As the world moves away from monumentality, a sense of emptiness regarding site specificity arises. Sculptures no longer carry the pedestal as a separate unit; and paintings no longer need elaborate frames. This allows works to be moved and displayed in different contexts. One of the major shifts we have seen in art is its mobility. The ancient can be differentiated from the modern and contemporary not only by its freestanding nature but also by its permanence within a specific context. With his imaginary lines Dhruv Mistry stands at this cusp of modern sculptures while Ranbir Kaleka navigates this expanded field by incorporating moving images, blurring the lines between documentation and reimagining landscapes.
The definitions of art have become reductive, anything existing in the space, beyond the realm of companion species or natural scrap, could be considered a sculpture. As Rosalind Krauss points out, this involves a combination of exclusions. Similarly, the scope of the term “painting” evolves and changes, now encompassing concerns related to reproducibility. Develing into such thoughts the exhibition brings together the folds in Ankon Mitra’s works stirred by architecture and design with Probir Gupta’s images of resistance within constant flux between art and activism, while T. Venkanna’s nude bodies serve as the classical within the contemporary.
The nature of art has been a philosophical debate since the first visual ever created and so have the heterogeneous category of sculpture, painting and installations. To keep up with the ephemerality of contemporary life new terms such as community art and performance photography are constantly being formally recognised. The debates have shifted from art and craft to art and design and to art and activism in subsequent decades and with that the executions have also evolved. As is evident in Vibha Galhotra’s multidisciplinary response to matters of climate change, capitalism and consumerism.
This exhibition encompasses this journey and critically comments on the purpose and value of art in a social context, bridging the gap between the past and the future.
Founder, MASH
Shalini Passi
