Bhavna Kakar opens a new gallery at Lado Sarai with Size Matters or Does It?

New Delhi: Latitude 28 presents Size Matters or Does It? – a unique exhibition that attempts to break the conventional notions about the apt size of a work of art. The exhibition is on from February 18, 2010 to March 10, 2010 at LATITUDE 28, F/208, Lado Sarai, New Delhi.

The opening of the exhibition would be accompanied with the launch of Bhavna Kakar’s new art magazine TAKE on art, a quarterly magazine focusing on art and cultural events from India and abroad. Guest edited by Shaheen Merali, the theme of the first issue is dedicated to the colour ‘Black’. What’s more, fifty limited edition small size framed artworks by Chittrovanu Mazumdar, concurrent with the theme of black, have been created by the artist especially for the launch of the magazine.
Says Bhavna Kakar, Director, Latitude 28: “The motive of the show is not to establish the commercial aspect of art in terms of the size of a work but to look at a gamut of contemporary artists whose works are fresh in approach and concept proving their proficiency at handling both BIG or SMALL format works. Since no specific size was allocated to the artists, their works are their own personal interpretations of the title Size Matters or Does It?”

Size Matters or Does it? consists of two parts. The first includes artists Arunkumar H.G., Baiju Parthan, Chittrovanu Mazumdar, Dilip Chobisa, G R Iranna, Mithu Sen, Manjunath Kamath, Pooja Iranna, Pushpamala N, Sarnath Banerjee, Prajakta Palav and Siddhartha Kararwal.

The second part will exhibit Babu Eshwar Prasad, Niyeti Chadha, Manisha Parekh, Minal Damani, Dhruvi Acharya, Chila Kumari Burman, Jayshree Chakravarty, TV Santhosh and Simrin Mehra Agarwal.

While, Baroda-based Siddhartha Kararwal’s mixed media work uses everyday objects and infuses them with multiple levels of meaning. Pooja Iranna’s sculptures and drawings are quiet and eloquent statements about the role size plays in a viewer’s reading of an artwork. On the other hand,GR Iranna’s large scale work Kawwali establishes a disconnect between the tradition of looking at art and the way art is experienced by the contemporary eye.

Arunkumar HG’s works uses humor as a method of uncovering the absurdity of size. He uses small figurines in the image of public figures to demonstrate the complexities of memorialization merged with cultural cravings for kitsch.


Pushpamala N considers constructions of history in her photographs, particularly the stories and voices of women. Her large and small images engage with histories that are generally unknown. With Lady on Bicycle, the artist explains that “Women learning to ride the bicycle was part of the social reform movement in India, along with women's education and widow remarriage. It signaled a new freedom and mobility. In the early part of the 20th century, women would pose for studio photographs against painted backdrops with a book in their hand. Spectacles, lady’s purse, book, and umbrella were markers of modernity.”

Baiju Parthan subverts the idea of fixed measurements through exploding the microscopic details of a fly in his image Ointment. Capturing its relativity to vision and perception, Parthan proposes a conception of size that is unstable and constantly shifting. Parthan explains that, “these two works are about our ideas about the world and to the lengths we go to protect, defend, and propagate them. The very fact that there are many such comprehensive views ( most of them religious in character) explaining the universe differently, suggest that these are all products of engagement between the human self awareness and specific geographical environments. One could consider these world views as artifacts of the human mind, similar to a balm or ointment that soothes the sting of our existential predicament - of not knowing why we are here in this world.” Like Parthan, Dilip Chiobsa also plays with altering perceptions of space and time in his painting in his image which manipulates traditions of painterly perspective.

Manjunath Kamath locates size in the practices of daily life. Weighing in on his paintings, Kamath says, “I have made twelve small works in 5 inch by 4 inch which can be symbolically called a series of twelve small lies. Lie is one of the strongest palliatives that the humans have adopted to make the life easier. The size may vary…big lies, small lies but they are omnipresent. Through my works, I probe the origin, growth and nature of lies in our society.”

Artist Jayshree Chakravarty uses large and small format works to probe the topography of surface. Her interest in minute details and textures creates varying visual experiences.
Simrin Mehra Agarwal large scale metal sculpture is awe-inspiring, suggesting the spectacle of size.

Minal Damani’s works move between flat and multi-dimension readings, disrupting any division between form and ground, and exposing the slippery relationship between binary oppositions.