B.V. Suresh. Facilitating the Beast. Vinyl medium on canvas 72" x 96". 2006.
B.V. Suresh. Retakes of the Shadow: Still from a Video (part of a larger installation). 3 minutes. 2006.

Memories of Murder

B.V.Suresh's works recall pogroms that have scarred our collective conscience, observes Meera Menezes.

     FOUR YEARS AFTER THE GODHRA RIOTS, THE ECHOES OF THE GENOCIDE STILL reverberate in B. V. Suresh's works. His show at Delhi's Vadehra Art Gallery from the 30th of September till the 30th of October was titled, Facilitating the Beast. The exhibition was divided into two main sections - one, with a body of paintings, and the other, with a group of digital prints, a multimedia installation, and a video work. Though seemingly disparate, a closer reading revealed that the two sections shared common symbolic and semantic bonds, linked as they were by the thread of violence that ran through them.

     Of the two bodies of work, the more compelling was undoubtedly the installation, different parts of which generated a scathing yet poignant critique of the violence perpetrated in Gujarat. His three-minute video, Retakes of the Shadow, referenced both newspaper clippings as well as films, and was an indictment of the way politicians have stoked communal flames. His use of a photograph of a man setting fire to a float, titled, Sabarmati Express, underlined this cynicism, and was one of the dominating images in the film. The other images that floated in were those of Husain's paintings, which have often come under attack, like Bharat Mata. One saw 'saffronisation' gradually taking over in the film - as images began jumping as if they were out of control.

     His Shifting series of digital prints, painted over with acrylic, seemed to be freeze frames of his video, but in a monochromatic mode. They offered a wonderful play of light and shade with their blurred, nebulous fragments. They revealed motifs that crop up in his paintings as well, such as the lotus flower (emblem of a right-wing party), body parts, the outline of a fallen figure, a bird on a wing, and the face of a boar. The sound piece that accompanied the work comprised a disturbing drone/clatter, shattering the stillness of Shiftings and setting the stage and mood for his installation with bread in the centre of the gallery space. By creating an atmosphere of menace and doom, Suresh heightened the viewing experience of his three columns of charred bread loaves (See the cover of this issue). Recalling the Best Bakery case, one could not but read his loaves as representations of charred bodies, and with it, of charred hopes.

     Suresh culls his images from several sources - comic book figures, newspapers, hoardings, and the electronic media. In doing so, he chooses to eschew the hyper-realistic mode of representation even while courting media-inspired realism. He revels in the act of subversion, as seen in his work, In Between, where the newspaper image of a boy keeping wickets is transformed into one of a trigger-happy terrorist. By doing so, he questions strategies used to construct the real world and demonstrates how easy it is to manipulate 'authentic' accounts of history.