Marriage Merchandise: a post-www promo
Marriage Merchandise: a post-www promo
Sherbagh cream, Baul Balm, Taj Honey, Gateway Body Paint , Bhopal Hamam Massage Oil , Chirapunjee Mist Oil, Sindoori love… were some of the 'products' on display at Mumbai's Gallery Chemould through December. The fantastic display was a 'promotional effort' by the website, www.arrangeurownmarriage.com, the people who gave you freedom to be married and (yet) be cool!
Many said the show was fun! Perhaps they sensed the fun poked precisely at them…
Hande's show was full of subtle satire. Had it not been the slightly exaggerated, the website and the gallery 'presentation' were sure to look like a real advert.
On her website, Hande is up with the 'merchandise'
The self-implicating satire posed as if one is really selling erotic products, inviting people to share their private experiences of an arranged marriage, and thus endeavoured to support the institution of arranged marriages. What better time could it have been for this pose, that today? There was a time when arranged marriages were considered unromantic (and the arts : literature, films, theatre, supported this belief), but now when everybody knows how to 'manage' her/his life, and there is a six-sigma for every act and chicken soup for every soul, it really doesn't matter whether you have a 'love-marriage' or an 'arranged marriage', ain't it? Moreover, with the advent of WWW, and numerous 'matrimonial websites' that give a dot-com ease to find your mate, the 'self arranged' marriages are here to stay…
Hand skillfully communicated these hidden notes using PR-copywriting language. The wall texts with her works read like promo-plans first, and then at some point the reader-viewer got the exaggeration. Once the reader cracks this 'atishayokti' (exaggeration) and at times, apanhuti (cryptic allegory) code, the communication was received! The text was accompanied by sculptural, photo-based, painted, and scrapbook visuals. Of course, in the same cryptic vein as text, these works took form of 'readily-framed miniature paintings for your bedroom', ' product display', 'poster'… the visual grammar that dominates in the world that needs 'info', was subverted here to reclaim the realm of art.
Thus, on the walls, the exotically-shaped bottles supposedly containing erotic anointments (sher bagh balm et al), that would look like a product display, called for a second look when the viewer sensed they are in solid glass. The 'bottles' had no cavity, and were not bottles! Every honeymoon destination 'promo' picture (that went with the work that called the 'users' to know what natural element they belong to, according to their zodiac sign) made wicked fun of the typical photo-poses of the newly-weds in their honeymoon-trip albums. These posy images were painted over the photos. These photo-based works had some digital perversions, too. And then, they also had some purposeless 'folk-art' that was brutally reduced to embellishments.
These visual and textual subversions addressed issues that are both global and local. It surely pinpointed the longing for a life partner in a caste-and gotra-bound Indian situation, the new-found consciousness toward achieving erotic nirvana that belongs to post- www India, and the spa-savvy, ayurveda- freak culture that is (we are always told,) 'fast becoming global'.
Hande insists that her work is not complete, and her project 'arrangeurownmarriage' will go on, with more interactive features. The problem that such a satirical work would face is that those who 'interact' might lack the same purposeful reason to make fun of themselves! Otherwise, if an artist chooses who interacts and who does not, the work looses its purpose, ending up in a coterie. Let us hope Hande evades this trap.
-- Abhijeet Tamhane.
Sherbagh cream, Baul Balm, Taj Honey, Gateway Body Paint , Bhopal Hamam Massage Oil , Chirapunjee Mist Oil, Sindoori love… were some of the 'products' on display at Mumbai's Gallery Chemould through December. The fantastic display was a 'promotional effort' by the website, www.arrangeurownmarriage.com, the people who gave you freedom to be married and (yet) be cool!
Many said the show was fun! Perhaps they sensed the fun poked precisely at them…
Hande's show was full of subtle satire. Had it not been the slightly exaggerated, the website and the gallery 'presentation' were sure to look like a real advert.
On her website, Hande is up with the 'merchandise'
The self-implicating satire posed as if one is really selling erotic products, inviting people to share their private experiences of an arranged marriage, and thus endeavoured to support the institution of arranged marriages. What better time could it have been for this pose, that today? There was a time when arranged marriages were considered unromantic (and the arts : literature, films, theatre, supported this belief), but now when everybody knows how to 'manage' her/his life, and there is a six-sigma for every act and chicken soup for every soul, it really doesn't matter whether you have a 'love-marriage' or an 'arranged marriage', ain't it? Moreover, with the advent of WWW, and numerous 'matrimonial websites' that give a dot-com ease to find your mate, the 'self arranged' marriages are here to stay…
Hand skillfully communicated these hidden notes using PR-copywriting language. The wall texts with her works read like promo-plans first, and then at some point the reader-viewer got the exaggeration. Once the reader cracks this 'atishayokti' (exaggeration) and at times, apanhuti (cryptic allegory) code, the communication was received! The text was accompanied by sculptural, photo-based, painted, and scrapbook visuals. Of course, in the same cryptic vein as text, these works took form of 'readily-framed miniature paintings for your bedroom', ' product display', 'poster'… the visual grammar that dominates in the world that needs 'info', was subverted here to reclaim the realm of art.
Thus, on the walls, the exotically-shaped bottles supposedly containing erotic anointments (sher bagh balm et al), that would look like a product display, called for a second look when the viewer sensed they are in solid glass. The 'bottles' had no cavity, and were not bottles! Every honeymoon destination 'promo' picture (that went with the work that called the 'users' to know what natural element they belong to, according to their zodiac sign) made wicked fun of the typical photo-poses of the newly-weds in their honeymoon-trip albums. These posy images were painted over the photos. These photo-based works had some digital perversions, too. And then, they also had some purposeless 'folk-art' that was brutally reduced to embellishments.
These visual and textual subversions addressed issues that are both global and local. It surely pinpointed the longing for a life partner in a caste-and gotra-bound Indian situation, the new-found consciousness toward achieving erotic nirvana that belongs to post- www India, and the spa-savvy, ayurveda- freak culture that is (we are always told,) 'fast becoming global'.
Hande insists that her work is not complete, and her project 'arrangeurownmarriage' will go on, with more interactive features. The problem that such a satirical work would face is that those who 'interact' might lack the same purposeful reason to make fun of themselves! Otherwise, if an artist chooses who interacts and who does not, the work looses its purpose, ending up in a coterie. Let us hope Hande evades this trap.
-- Abhijeet Tamhane.
posted by abhi at 12:37 AM
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