Avijit Dutta's Blueprint of a bigger picture

“No short-cut in my life!” The statement seemed more of a self-admission. Maybe he could read my mind. Looking at him paint a portion of a wall, adjust frames and re-arrange the sources of light just a day before his debut exhibition at 105 Arts, Sector 11, Chandigarh, the thought did cross my mind – what artist would paint the background wall of a gallery to mount his frames?

But then, Avijit Dutta, an artist from Kolkata, in Chandigarh to conceptualise and curate the group show Blueprint, had a bigger picture in mind. It’s not just a one-off exhibition for him, but a blueprint for Chandigarh to build on for organising future exhibitions; exhibitions, which in his words, would be “zara hatke”. That’s his gift to the city.

He brought along a treasure trove to start with – works of masters, senior contemporary artists and budding ones. The list is exhaustive and awe-inspiring — Ganesh Pyne, Mukul Chandra Dey, Manjit Bawa, Somnath Hore, Prosanto Roy, Anjolie Ela Menon, Jogen Chowdhury, Krishen Khanna, Laxma Goud, Prabhakar Kolte, Thota Vaikuntam, Ankon Miotran, Asit Poddar, Avijit Dutta himself, Birendra Pani, Dileep Sharma, George Martin, Gigi Scaria, Gurudas Shenoy, Jayasri Burman, Manjunath Kamath, Pratul Dash, Parvathi Nayar, R Bala Subramanian and more.

But big names alone do not make an exhibition unique. So, Avijit thought of this concept — to exhibit the blueprint of a creation, which is the drawing. The creative process which germinates on a blank page with simple lines was exactly what he wanted to showcase for Chandigarh art lovers. “Drawings hold an emotional and creative reservoir, an emblem of art awakenings, and eventually reveal the radiant finale of an artist. The Blueprint is dedicated exclusively to drawings as an art form,” Avijit said, as he inspected the placement of the frames on the walls.

Manjit Bawa’s sketch of a woman, Ganesh Pyne’s chaotic pen and ink drawing on paper, Hemant Dhane’s geometry of dreams, Anjolie Ela Menon’s face of a woman, among many others, somehow made me feel closer to the artist than the end product would have done!

“This exhibition will be a dark one, which means the light will be focused only on each individual frame while the halls will be dark by and large,” he dropped it casually.

Well, that’s another first for Chandigarh!

“Why do, or rather why should people visit a gallery?” it was Avijit’s turn to ask a question. But, to my relief, he answered it himself, “It’s not solely for the purpose of buying or collecting art. I feel it’s with the intent of reflection, of investing wholly and mindfully in a work of art, in a line of thought, in an image that evokes a variety of emotions.”

I was still trying to process the gravity of his statement, when he came with another one, “The young generation is so used to watching reels; my aim is to lure them away from the screen and make them stand in front of a painting for at least 30 minutes and have a dialogue with it. My job as an artist-curator is to make that process happen. That’s why I take the visual presentation part so seriously.”

It certainly makes sense. The 30-minute time frame, however, is debatable. But what’s not is Avijit’s enthusiasm to make Blueprint an ode to identity, to make 105 Arts a new platform for art and artists of Chandigarh. He has taken the first step with conviction and has given the city art patrons a good reason and enough time to take theirs.

The exhibition is on till January 6.