It’s not often that one gets a feel of the material an artist works with. At an exhibition at the Piramal Museum of Arts, Lower Parel, Mumbai, aims to give visitors a sense of that by exhibiting art pieces with the medium alongside it. The audience is encouraged to glimpse at the process an artist goes through in bringing artwork to life. “Making Art: Materials and Technology” is the show curated by Ashvin E Rajagopalan, Director, Piramal Museum of Art, with art historian Vaishnavi Ramanathan. The different materials and mediums include charcoal, ink and graphite, paints and pigments, sculpture, printmaking, photography and digital media.
The bronze sculpture of Gandhi on the Dandi March. Besides appreciating the work for its looks and detail, the show takes your engagement to a different level where you visitors touch and feel the coldness of the bronze. The organizers want our audience to reach our level of excitement at an art show, and what better way to do that than to get your hands messy and experiment with colors materials and ideas. Their main aim is to help people connect with art better by simplifying the entire process for them. It is important one knows how art feels, knows the textural basis to it, smells the paint and clay. Through this medium, they might be able to change the opinions of those who find art exhibitions boring.
The central space in the exhibition seats 40, where visitors can sit and work with various mediums, from crayons and color pencils to charcoal stubs. They have workshops on food, paper making, origami, and printmaking. They are very excited about the food workshop where patrons will be able to make edible art. We are working with a chef who will provide colored sauces and edible soy paper, enabling participants to play around with not just color and taste, make their art and eat it too. The exhibition is at Piramal Museum of Art, Mumbai, till June 15. Besides weekly workshops, there are guided tours on Sunday.
