APPOINTMENT 2009
A range of pleasures
by Mubin S Khan
Jamal Ahmed
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Appointment 2009 throws up a fantastic mix of works of art from a whole range of artists putting on display linear mastery, a range of realistic and abstract drawings, superb colour application, a variation of artistic skills, almost all mediums put to use and most importantly, a range of stories that renders the exhibition its vibrancy.
There are many group exhibitions that take place in this city, in fact, group exhibitions are more the norm than anything else. You get artists who have similar tastes having an exhibition together, artists who work with the same medium teaming up, artists who studied in the same batch, as well as many thematic group exhibitions. But what makes Appointment special is that the works of art have been together simply corresponding to its value, to give visual pleasure and bandwidth of range to the viewers eyes.
Starting from the veterans Samarjit Roy Chowdhury, Hamiduzaman Khan, Alokesh Ghosh and Chandra Shekhar Dey, to the exoticism of Jamal Ahmed and Rokeya Sultana, the artification of Ranjit Das, Mohammed Eunus and Khalid Mahmood Mithu, the intellectualism of Wakilur Rahman, the social consciousness of Nisar Hossain, the abstract reality of Rafi Haque, the sensuality and timelessness of Javed Jalil, Anukul Mojumder’s carnal passions and Kanak Chanpa’s indigenous awareness – the exhibition allows you to travel through a range of stories, emotions and skills. Maksudul Ahsan, Iffat Ara Dewan, Gulshan Hossain and Mushtaq Ahmed add serenity and relief to Appointment.
Arranged throughout the rooms at Shilpangan gallery in Dhanmondi, the painting have been chosen to give each room a character of its own, rather than being based on the relative seniority of artists. You find out how Kanak Chanpa’s has stopped short of giving full form to her figures and concentrated more on giving a new, stark flavour to her surface. Mohammed Eunus captivates by the way he has worked the canvas inside out to capture the beauty of a peacock. Alokesh Ghosh displays his superb skills as a water-colourist, renditions of rural Bengal in boats and picturesque landscapes, with the Bangladesh flag hoisted on the back of a boat giving a patriotic zeal to the most unlikely of settings. Hamiduzzaman explores the boat further when in the dark of the night, in a fog-covered canvas, fishermen work their way.
You could almost dismiss of Jamal Ahmed for his academic settings until you realise the direct, raw, sensuality with which he feels for him forms. For Javed Jalil, however, the entire canvas is his expression of sensuality. Forms intertwine in the most imaginative of manners, and tell distinct stories, not through the expression of surface-building but through the linear translation. Samarjit Roy Chowdhury, Rafi Haque and Maksudul Ahsan find serenity in the non-representative, albeit to different degrees, skills and expressions. Anukul Majumder, meanwhile, is bound to the fleshy delights of his forms, contrasting it with, well, contrasting background.
Wakilur Rahman finds out the inner workings of a mind while Nisar Hossain explores his social enemies through the forms of a hyena. Ranjit Das gives a taste of outline drawings in a few of his works, though he may have reserved the better ones for the solo exhibition that is being held simultaneously at Bengal Gallery. Iffat Ara is still in love with the beauty of her surroundings, though the number of elements has increased. And finally, it is best one asks Mushtaque Ahmed what that large canvas means.
Appointment was started 2003 by a few artists – Hamiduzzaman Khan, Abdus Shakoor, Ranjit Das, Ivy Zaman, Javed Jalil and Anukul Majumder as a unique idea where most of the art on display had been drawn on location at Shipangan and the artists would stick around to interact with viewers, hence the title of the exhibition. In the next few editions, which were numbered, as in Appointment II or Appointment III, the concept of working on site slowing disappeared. In 2009, Rumi Noman, the managing director of Shilpangan explains, ‘I have lost count of how many appointments we’ve had and hence the use of the year 2009 on the title.’
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