The blurring of lines between art and artefact

Artists and curators are leaving the confines of galleries and museums to bring art to unexpected places

- SANDIP ROY

Just as the Bengal Biennale was wrapping up this January, I went to see the art installation at the Alipore Jail museum, the famous red-brick Kolkata jail now turned into a museum.

There was a room filled with the many forms of Kali curated by Gayatri Sinha, from Chhinnamasta holding her own decapitated head to an ivory-skinned bare-breasted Kali who seemed to have emerged from European classical art.

In another room, Arpan Mukherjee used the fragile archaic medium of ambrotype to explore the changing landscape along the road from his village to the nearest town, tracing both the vanished guava trees and ponds and his own departure from the village.

Bappaditya Biswas used the prisoners weaving room to tell the story of indigo and revolution with real textiles and clay models of prisoners.

But where was Aradhana Seth's exhibit? Sada: Jaile Baire (The Jail and the World) was listed in the catalogue, but I couldn't find it anywhere.

The visitors gaping at the gallows didn't seem to know about it.

The guards sitting there to make sure no one misbehaved had no clue.

A museum volunteer pointed me towards the gate.

But I could see no gallery there, no sign for Seth.

Then I spotted Seth herself coming down the path.

"Where is your exhibit?" I asked her.

"I am trying to find it."

"It's right here," she said. "You are standing under it."

That's when I understood that it had been hiding in plain sight.

I had not been looking up.

Her art was lining the path, on old-school placards that once were a common sight, like sandwich boards on lamp posts.

The images seemed innocuous—everyday objects like mobile phones, locks and keys, social media logos.

But they told a story.

As you followed the path to the cells, the boards were signposts about the world the prisoners shed as they entered jail.