Anant Art’s Presence at Art Mumbai 2024
Anant Art is set to unveil a lineup of contemporary works by talented artists at the second edition of Art Mumbai, scheduled between 14-17 November 2024. The artists at the forefront include Abhishek Narayan Verma, Alexander Gorlizki, Dhara Mehrotra, Digbijayee Khatua, Ghulam Mohammad, Harsh Nambiar, Jatinder Singh Durhailay, Laxmipriya Panigrahi, Muhammad Zeeshan, Puja Mondal, Sharmi Chowdhury, Tito Stanley, and Vikrant Bhise.
The presentation brings together a diverse range of subject matter and enquiries artists in various stages of their careers; showcasing the range of Anant Art’s programme.
Niroj Satpathy at the Centre of Anant Art’s ‘Family of the Landfill’
Artist Niroj Satpathy’s visual practice is informed by a methodical understanding of dealing with waste materials and discarded objects that inhabit overflowing landfills or ‘dhalav.’ He peels away the rugged, superficial layers of everyday usage. This is what makes his enquiry magical, for landfills, according to Niroj, are altars of rebirth where objects find a life renewed, where new meanings are associated with everyday items, and where the value of equipment far exceeds what it may have been used for before.
This project, titled ‘Family of the Landfill,’ extends Niroj Satpathy’s engagement with garbage disposal and landfill sites. The landfill sites are home to hundreds of labourers and their families who, including their small children, collect material to sell later at a scrap market, earning their livelihood. While these labourers are acquainted with this life, the erasure of their identity leads to the living forgetting their names, and the dead being left behind as part of the garbage. This extreme erasure also gives birth to a new identity – one birthed by the landfill. New names, new castes, and new religions are born on this site that is beyond census and records.
Courtesy – Anant Art
This arrangement of multiple figures on a gleaming mountain apart from being a monument to the lives lived in the landfill sites, points lead one down three trails of thought. One, the mountains that were mythical abodes of gods – Olympus, Meru; two, a hierarchical arrangement that implies power structures, and three, a re-imagination of figure and aesthetic of garbage mounds. The installation consists of several individual pedestals of various heights, arranged to form a pyramid, on each level of which will stand an individual wooden entity.
About Niroj Satpathy
Artist Niroj Satpathy (b. 1984, Odisha, India) received a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Painting) from B. K. College of Arts and Crafts, Bhubaneswar, Odisha in 2006, and a Master of Visual Arts (Painting) from the Utkal University of Culture, Bhubaneswar, Odisha in 2015. Inspired by his experience as a night supervisor in the Waste Management Department, his practice reflects on issues and dialogues around land, community, politics, ecology, and relationships of a materialistic society, and constitutes a primarily process-based artistic approach.
In his work, he incorporates various mediums – collecting materials and objects from garbage dumps, landfills, second-hand markets, nature, and other spaces encountered in the mundane. These materials are then re-shaped or modified, influenced by the artist’s perception towards material use and sourcing. Working primarily with installations, he also incorporates other mediums such as drawing, painting, sculpture, photographic, digital, and video documentation etc. Niroj received a Junior Fellowship Award from the Ministry of Culture, Government of India (2018). Niroj lives and works in Delhi.
About Anant Art
Established in the early 2000s, Anant Art’s programme has been driven towards platforming contemporary art from the South Asian region and its diaspora, focussing on conceptually robust practices. The gallery is dedicated to showcasing contemporary art that interrogates and redefines cultural narratives. Anant Art’s curatorial program explores new perspectives and cultivates meaningful dialogues between tradition, identity, and contemporary practice.
Image Courtesy – Anant Art
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