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3/2/2012

Foundry

Clark House Initiative, Bombay

The Kala Ghoda Arts Festival began in 1999 and is in its 14th edition. It occurs on the streets and in the buildings that dot the precinct of Kala Ghoda, drawing attention to its history, and its dense superfluity of spaces for art and culture. This exhibition follows the trajectory of one of those histories, presented visually in zig-zag forms.

The building which houses the Printmaking Studio of the Sir JJ School of Arts is historically linked to the neo-gothic Victoria Terminus building (CST), today the most splendid and busiest railway station in Bombay, declared a world heritage site. The peculiar factory-like architecture of the stout building that houses the printmaking studio has an immediately recognisable zig-zag roof pattern. It is in fact the 19c. century saw-tooth roof, that by the early 20c. became emblematic of a factory all over the world, with its modular, easily repeating and extendable design. It was on the premises of the School of Art that a metal foundy was built in close vicinity of the Victoria Terminus, and where all its ornamental metalwork was designed and cast.

Foundry is a sculpure of the JJ Printmaking Studio, made from zinc printing plates, highlighing the unique modular shape of the roof, drawing associations of memory between the 'studio', the 'factory', the 'guild', the foundry for casting metal and the zinc printing plates used in art making. The studio's large presses, forks for the heating of the plates, basins of acid wash, myriad tools, and a constant smell of burnt paraffin remind us of a factory. In the 20th century Andy Warhol in a studio called the factory, through numerous silk screen prints of popular iconography negotiated a new role for a medium once considered debased, and exclusive to commercial art and advertising.

The studio at the School of Art began when Professor YK Shukla, returning from France, brought with him myriad techniques of printmaking and introduced a hobby class at the college. Printmaking was introduced as a subject in 1962 after ten years of it having been taught at the college, which makes this the studio's 50th year. The head of the studio, Professor Anant Nikam, has taught in it for 23 years. In March 2011, a series of teaching strategies were developed together with the Clark House Initiative through a series of portfolios and invited guest workshops. In October 2011, the artist Liz Ballard, then on an artist residency in Bombay, was invited to work with the students of the printmaking department, which resulted in the latest portfolio published by the Printmaking Studio of the Sir JJ School of Art. Peti is a portfolio of experimental prints presented as a three dimensional accordion made of zig-zag folds.

The portfolio was completed after Liz Ballard's initial impetus that began with a workshop, stressing the physicality of the printing plate. This involved making holes through the plate and taking prints from both its sides. Liz Ballard's interest in structures, visual, spoken, and poetic symmetries, mirror images, pressings, imprints and folds, was maintained as intrinsic to the portfolio.

The works were published on thirty-year-old paper made by hand, bought from the Khadi Bhandar (an initiative founded by Gandhi to promote economic self-reliance of villages through small-scale handicraft industries) that were found in the inventory of the studio. The alternative methods of production required alterations in the methods of presenting the works, that could retain the folded, mirror images, made during the process of printing on both sides. This led to the crafting of a peti - a pun for a box or accordion, made from a single sheet of paper folded into zig-zag patterns, that closed to make a rectangular box, or opened up into an accordion to display the folded prints.

A workshop at Clark House conducted by Shilpa Nikam on Woodcut Printmaking
from 5-12 February 2012, 2pm, 4pm, 5pm, 6pm
Fee: Rs. 250 including all materials

This project is indebted to many, among them, Mark Coombs.

Clark House Initiative is a curatorial collaborative practice established in 2010 by Sumesh Sharma and Zasha Colah.

Image:
Left: CST (Victoria Terminus) Station, a UNESCO World Heritage Site showing details of cast metalwork.
Right: The foundry set up on the Sir JJ School of Art premises opposite the station for the design and casting of all the metalwork. Today it is the college's printmaking studio.

Clark House Initiative
Ground Floor, Clark House
8 Nathalal Parekh Marg (Old Wodehouse Road)
opposite Sahakari Bhandar, and Regal Cinema
near Woodside Inn, Bombay 400039
Hours: 11am-7pm

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