Industrious Illustrations@ India International Centre [DELHI]

Uma Nair

It was during my winter time at New York that I would look for exhibitions of just drawings. The person who introduced me to the world of drawings was my friend Francis Newton Souza, and he had told me of the nonprofit ‘Drawing Center’ with its stunning space as it is the only non-profit in the country to focus entirely on drawings. The best thing about this space is the fact that it specializes in historical exhibits, with past shows featuring Ellsworth Kelly (nearly 200 never-before-seen works on paper), and an incredible selection of nearly 150 works from the Tate collection, with pieces by Bacon, Beckmann, Blake, Duchamp, Picabia, Johns and Hesse. This space not only focuses on the past.

But it is also a space for emerging artists. There have been pieces from Canada’s rambling, vibrant collective the Royal Art Lodge; the late Margaret Kilgallen, whose lyrical installation was inspired by old signs and whimsical street murals; and British artist and conceptual filmmaker Tacita Dean, who mounted a series of seven huge, ambitious works on chalkboard in the space. In India we don’t have such a space and so when India International Centre sent me an invitation for the exhibition of Drawings by Mala Marwah, Sujata Singh and Suddhatsawa Basu-it was a treat for tired eyes. The Annexe wore a new look, one that mirrored the beauty of the power of the contour and the elegance of drawing. The book of illustrations that was brought out is a veritable treat and it spoke of the power of the drawn world.