Prithpal Singh Ladi returns after a decade with sculptures that
still have the power to shock and awe!
New Delhi, October 15, 2008: Gallery Threshold hosted a cocktail preview of Logic 'il' Logic, a sculpture show by artist Prithpal Singh Ladi who is back with a bang after a self-imposed hiatus of almost a decade. His eclectic sculptures display the usage of found material like broken tube-lights, fused bulbs, old chandeliers, scraps of old trophies, gemstones and metal to exhibit beauty in eccentricity. The show is on from October 16, 2008 till November 12, 2008 at Gallery Threshold, F-213 A, Lado Sarai,
Present on the event were artists Shamshad Hussain, Gopi Gajwani, Vivan Sundaram, Ram Rehman, Prithpal Singh Ladi, Dharmendra Rathore, Pratul Dash, Manu Parekh with wife Madhvi Parekh, Amitava Das with wife Mona Rai, Subroto Kundu with wife Nupur Kundu, Art Curator Alka Pande, Prima Kurien, Alka Raghuvanshi, Sushma Bahl, Shukla Sawant and art critic Suneet Chopra.
Explained Tunty Chauhan, Director, Gallery Threshold: “Prithpal Singh Ladi was quite the shooting star when he appeared on the horizon around a decade ago, then wasn't heard of much, and has recently come back into the reckoning with his new works. Ladi makes sculptures that are restlessly rooted in a pervasive multitude of life's transforming manifestations. The art world awaits his return with curiosity, anticipation and bated breath.”
At 53, Ladi's works continue to exhibit his penchant for the eccentric and strange and reflect his constant struggle to come to terms with personal loss far beyond the ordinary. Almost every work is a tribute to the suffering of a family member but it is the artist’s masterly imagination at using material that redeems the work from being merely a personal indulgence. Though each sculpture is almost a condensed narrative that begins with an autobiographical tinge, it soon grows into a larger picture. Through intricately detailed dragonflies and hindless frogs, mechanical devices like an antique Mercedes typewriter, limp human figures in postures of obeisance, Ladi infuses his sculptures with a queer humor that enables the viewer to access them, moving effortlessly from the familiar to the fantastic, or from the apparent to the suggested.
Take his series Jewel Insects for instance. Large dragonflies made of glass, gemstones and metal are reference to his childhood years spent in Shillong replete with freedom of creativity and innocence which now he feels are “under siege”. Or the sculpture titled Replotted (fibre glass) where a bemused man tries to hold down a fossilized butterfly that has almost escaped his grasp. Says Ladi: “My father was a famed jeweller who was modern in outlook and gave me the freedom to choose art when the rest of the family was either doctors or engineers. When I lost him to cancer, I almost went into hiding fighting my own internal demons. I think I’m now ready to face the art world with work which will tell not only my story but also of so many others who we call the ‘common man’.”
In another sculpture tiled Type Muskan, Ladi has used an antique typewriter from the makers of Mercedes to create what he calls a ‘jungle story’ for his 10-year-old son Muskan. So, one can find desolate animal figures all telling their tale of nature being lost to deforestation and commercialisation. “I am revisiting my childhood years through my son. Just like a child, I learn everyday to resurrect dead material that is no longer of any use. Glass of whiskey bottles, broken tube-lights, fused bulbs, old chandeliers and scraps of old trophies all find their way into my work one way or the other. Sometimes, I get carried way too,” he smiles. What’s interesting is one can dismantle the sculpture to use the typewriter as an original, a technique the sculptor could master because of his science background in college.
Just as he had broken all norms of sculptural attitude during his student days in
Certainly, a much-awaited show that’s a must-visit!
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Ladi was born in 1955, In Shillong. He studied sculpture with distinction at the
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