Celebrating Jyoti Bhatt's visual lexicon

An ongoing retrospective offers a renewed appreciation of the artist's inclusive gaze

- Trisha Mukherjee

Two years ago, an extensive exhibition of Jyoti Bhatt's photography was hosted at the Museum of Art and Photography, Bengaluru. The same year, a collection of his graphic prints was displayed at the Delhi Contemporary Art Week by Latitude 28. In the last couple of years, different facets of the artist's practice have been celebrated across the world—be it at the significant group exhibition Imaginary Institution of India: Art 1975-1998 at the Barbican Centre, London, last year or the ongoing Body Transformed: Contemporary South Asian Photographs and Prints at the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art in Washington D.C., US. It is natural that the announcement of his most recent retrospective, Jyoti Bhatt: Through the Line and the Lens would beckon the question: how would this exhibition add another dimension to experiencing the artist's repertoire spanning over seven decades? But as you walk through the exhibition, it is evident that with Bhatt, who continues to create at 91, there is always more.

It is well known that Bhatt dons many hats: painter, photographer, printmaker, and teacher. As the title suggests, the exhibition features photographs and prints from the collection of gallerist Bhavna Kakar. The curation by Bhatt's student, the Vadodara-based artist Rekha Rodwittiya, allows for a more holistic reflection of his persona. Kakar wanted to explore ways in which the show could offer a renewed appreciation of his work. "Along with the technical dexterity of his prints, the exhibition is a profound recognition of the incisive social and cultural commentary that underlies the surface of each print," she adds.