KSHUDHIT PASHAN
Prof. Mahendra Pandya is one of the most prolific sculptors of India. He has worked in every conventional sculptural medium like stone, wood, metal etc. with unmatched dexterity and has exploited new material with equal competence. A sizable section of the enormous body of work that he has produced during his long career which spans through almost six decades is yet to be showcased publicly. The show – ‘Kshudhit Pashan’ – attempted to highlight that significant section along with some of his drawings that divulge his masterly draftsmanship and highly complex imagery.
Mahendra Pandya had two one man shows in 1964 and 1968 that gave him recognition as a young sculptor. The assemblages in split, burnt, charred wood in the second show not only won critical acclaim but also earned him a place in the prestigious Sao Paolo Biennale. It is significant that, Prof. Pandya like a true nihilist did not return to the idiom that gave him recognition and professional success. Instead, he experimented with unconventional material. In mid seventies, he returned to wood but unlike his earlier wood sculptures which were carved from solid rosewood logs, he constructed his sculptures using planks, wooden sections, trellis, and lattice resembling the wooden balconies in medieval domestic architecture of Gujarat and installed carved wooden busts with crooked faces in them as if peeping out of the balconies like the mischievous couples seen behind the Kushana yakshis from Mathura. The difference is, while the Kushana couples are shown in a jovial, buoyant mood; the people here are with blank, impassive faces. A dilapidated fan hanging over them, a cat or a mouse sneaking into that bleak, dreary space rendered the forlorn ambiance of the lower middle class life in Gujarat with tremendous restrain but unlike Van Gogh’s compassionate construal in his ‘Potato eaters’, Pandya divulges a certain schizophrenic indifference, irreverence by infusing an element of mockery through the distorted, idiotic portrayal of his characters. He hits more at the values than the state of their life. Considering the intrinsic polyphony of his idiom, the sarcasm, the irony in it, these sculptures can be termed as the inauguration of ‘Post Modern’ in Indian sculptural history.
He modeled a series of thumb size sculptures in bronze depicting couples engrossed in erotic act. They appear like irregular metal nuggets at first site but a closer look reveals the subtle modeling and the figures that transpire out of it. Pandya models them following the contours of the nugget and almost allows the images to emerge on their own. The same ‘automatism’ is practiced in his recent stones. Pandya, in preference to pre conceived, pre modeled form visualizes innate, instinctive possibilities in an irregular boulder that suit his expression and as stated earlier, exploits its ridges and contours into a sculpture. Many of these sculptures have mythological references but they do not necessarily subscribe to the popular belief or faith. Pandya savors their inherent absurdity more than their meaningfulness. Through a curious fusion of cheeky, insolent skepticism and naïve inquisition he persistently questions the sanctity of tradition.
These nihilistic tendencies are betrayed more in his drawings. When it comes to two dimensional expressions, he surrenders the iconic gravity that he builds up in his sculpture and resorts to narrativity. He constructs various locales in the given space as seen in the Jataka narratives. The sensuous images rendered through the frail but immensely plastic lines assert the solemnity and dignity of the classical drawing.
