Toying with Gandhi by Debanjan Roy
October 22, 2019 – November 8, 2019 at Akar Prakar, Delhi
In post-colonial India, the artist has emerged as Gandhi’s conscience keeper, drawing upon the Mahatma’s over-circulated image to attack much that has gone wrong with and in the country. Debanjan Roy (1975−) is one such conscience keeper, and a complicated one at that.
Born, raised and educated in Kolkata, Roy has over the past decade and more developed across the body of his work what might be called an aesthetic of edgy playfulness to draw attention to the misappropriations and over-appropriations of the Mahatma’s image in the production of Brand Gandhi. There is something disorienting about the Gandhi we encounter in Roy’s drawings, prints, and sculptures, but that is precisely the point the artist intends to make, for his grand project is to get us to reflect upon what we have done with and to the Mahatma over the decades, and particularly with his image.
After a decade of toying with the Mahatma—and with us—and not least, after castigating venal politicians who have toyed with his image for their dubious purposes, Roy literally cuts him down to size in his Toy Gandhi project, drawing upon the toy-making traditions from India and fashioned from a variety of media (wood, fiberglass, silicon, clay and paper, sola pith). There is enough of the Mahatma in the series for us to identify the referent—the dhoti, the staff, the Mickey Mouse ears—but just about. All the same, we walk away also feeling unsettled because that well-known face and figure seem not altogether all that familiar. The final—ironic—takeaway from the Toy Gandhi series might well indeed be that the Mahatma can only be toyed with at our own peril, his message undone, his image destabilized, his name reduced to a merest trifle.
Sumathi Ramaswamy, Professor of History, Duke University
Debanjan Roy | Russian Doll Gandhi 2/2 | Wood and enamel paint | 30 x 30 x 30 in | 2019
Debanjan Roy | Munny Gandhi 2/5 | Fibreglass with Automotive paint | 40 x 30 x 36 in | 2019
Debanjan Roy | Munny Gandhi 2/5 | Fibreglass with Automotive paint | 12 x 5 x 8.5 in | 2019
Debanjan Roy | Chowkidar Gandhi 2/5 | Wood and enamel paint | 48 x 14 x 14 in | 2019
Debanjan Roy | Super Gandhi 2/5 | Fibreglass & weather coat acrylic paint | 53 x 30 x 10 in | 2019
Debanjan Roy | Marionette Gandhi 2/5 | Wood, fabric and enamel paint | 48 x 20 x 10 in | 2019
Debanjan Roy | Bobble head Gandhi 2/5 | Fibreglass and weather coat acrylic paint | 54 x 22 x 22 in | 2019
Debanjan Roy | Bobble head Gandhi 2 2/5 | Fibreglass and weather coat acrylic paint | 54 x 22 x 22 in | 2019
Debanjan Roy | Shadow | Pen & ink on paper | 18 x 12 in | 2018
About Debanjan Roy
Born in 1975, Debanjan Roy completed his Bachelor of Arts in Visual Arts (Sculpture) from Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata, in 1998, and Masters in Visual Arts (Sculpture) from Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata, in 2000. Some of his recent solo shows include: Metamorphosis, Akar Prakar, New Delhi and France, 2015; Waste Side Story, Akar Prakar, Kolkata, 2014; The Altar of Convenience, Aicon Gallery, New York, 2011; Altar of Convenience, Aicon Gallery, New York, 2013; Looking for Bapu, Akar Prakar, Ahmedabad and Kolkata, 2010. In 2014, his work, “Banana Tree”, which was made out of discarded tyres and tubes, was exhibited at the Indian Museum, Kolkata, on the occasion of Earth Day.
Debanjan has participated in several group shows: Seattle Art Museum, USA; Akar Prakar at India Art Fair, New Delhi, 2014; Bangladesh Art Biennale, Dhaka, 2013; Vermont Studio Centre Residency Open Studio show, Johnson, USA, 2011 and 2012; Enduring Legacy, Berlin and Munich, Germany; Reprise Aicon Gallery, London; Masterpieces of Indian Art – North Carolina, Aicon, and Dalip and Monica Awasthi; and Who has seen Mr. Gandhi? at Tangerine, Bangalore, 2010, to name a few. Among the residencies he has attended include Chateau De La Napoule, Nice, under the Asiatic Museum, Nice, France, in collaboration with Akar Prakar, India, 2016.
He has been awarded the Navonmesha Puraskar by Lath Sarvoday Trust, Kolkata 2005; Nirman Art Award, Kolkata, 2004; Lalit Kala Akademi Scholarship, New Delhi 2002; Junior Fellowship, Ministry of Tourism and Culture, Govt. of India, among other honours.The artist lives and works in Kolkata.
About Sumathi Ramaswamy
Sumathi Ramaswamy, James B. Duke Professor of History and International Comparative Studies, is Chair of the Department of History at Duke University, and President of the American Institute of Indian Studies (2018- 2022). She has published extensively on language politics, gender studies, spatial studies and the history of cartography, visual studies and the modern history of art, and more recently, digital humanities and the history of philanthropy. Her most recent monograph is titled Terrestrial Lessons: The Conquest of the World as Globe (University of Chicago Press, 2017). She is the winner of numerous scholarly awards, including from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies in the USA, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany. She is currently working on a book on the shifting contours of educational philanthropy in colonial and modern India, and on a collaborative digital humanities project titled “No Parallel? The Fatherly Bodies of Gandhi and Mao.” She has a forthcoming monograph titled Gandhi in the Gallery: The Art of Disobedience (Roli Books, 2019).