A shrine to cinema

A new genre of visual art is being formed in the contemporary world. And Baba Anand's work is an amalgam of these visual encounters. ALKA PANDE reports on his show in Mumbai.

THE latest offering from the Apollo Apparao Galleries in Mumbai is the aptly titled "Bollywood Shrine" an exhibition of mixed media works by Baba Anand. Mumbai, with its large film industry, is the best geographical space for a show so closely linked to the celluloid world.

Baba has an interesting personal history which makes his work so symptomatic of the times. In 1986, he graduated from the National Institute of Fashion Technology, New Delhi. After eight successful years in the fashion industry, Baba decided to switch mediums. "Over the course of the following six years I taught myself how to paint experimenting with various techniques and mediums, he says."

Baba brings with him the baggage of the fashion world. Using mixed media and embellishing them with crystals, beads, sequins and other glitzy material from the fashion world, he gives a three-dimensional feel to film posters and imparts a richly textured quality. "I have painted film stars and different films, bringing out the 'real' kitsch, which is a very strong element of the silver screen." The works are bright, colourful and very dramatic - characteristics of the Hindi films.

The glamour is dizzy and endearing. The posters are lavishly framed with brocade, fake fur, gota kinari and jhalar from Kinari Bazar in New Delhi.

Baba says that he is the only artist who paints on Old Bollywood movie posters and is consciously and consistently trying to use the lost beauty and glamour of yesteryear Bollywood. "My art arises from associations with film critics and film dignitaries from all over the world ... This show is a shrine to the more flamboyant entertainers and movies that have become kitsch over the years."

The posters which he has worked upon are retro from the 1950's through to the 1970's and the body of work exoticises the popular actors and actresses of that period. By painting over, he deliberately enhances the posters.

Having been part of the vastly popular "Kitsch Kitsch Hota Hai" in Delhi earlier this year, Baba prefers to use the term kitsch for his work. "I have painted film stars and different films, bringing out the 'real kitsch' which is a very strong element of the silver screen."

After seeing the broad spectrum of Baba Anand's work, a more appropriate term would be the "Collisionists" where the most attractive visual elements are being used by the artists of the current generation. Cinema, urban imagery, politics, craft, design and colour in India offer artists an enormous bank of ideas, collaborations and amalgamations to work with. A new genre of visual art is being formed in the contemporary world. And Baba Anand's work is an amalgam of these visual encounters. So the apt term would be "collision" or "collisionists".

Artists are constantly searching for new and attractive visuals to add to their language. Baba Anand has delved into the world of cinema, appropriating directly from a defined visual metaphor amalgamating it with his own training as a fashion designer and developing a trajectory which is dramatic, and totemic of popular culture.

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