An amoral universe

Farhad Hussain has made a mark with his cynical take on contemporary sexual mores. Gargi Gupta checks out a recent exhibition.

With a few exceptions, contemporary Indian art is not known for its depiction of sexuality. Nude studies, yes, are dime a dozen, with some in flagrantly titillatory sprawls, and erotica, too, of the high, man-woman tradition is commonplace. But of stuff that meanders off the straight and narrow path, there isn't much.

Which is why Farhad Hussain's (exhibition ongoing at the Vadehra Gallery in Delhi) explicit, rather grotesque portrayals of Bacchanalian orgies is so astonishing.

Men, women, animals participate in a bizarre carnival (in the truly Bakhtinian sense) of sex in Farhad's canvasses, their faces set like a mask in what Avijna Bhattacharya nicely describes in her foreword as "an incorrigible signature smile", as if showing off the actions their limbs are up to.

Look at "Sequence Four", which foregrounds a woman sitting on a car with her legs spread apart, her hand on her genitals; the triangular bonnet with two lines running across the median stands out in bright green, seeming like a giant tongue... or a vulva?

To the right is another woman joyously riding a pig, while in front of the car are three figures "" a bare-torsoed man who's turned away from the woman reaching out to him, who, in turn, has another naked woman touching her bare buttocks.

It's a theatre of hedonism in bright primary colours, an impression that is reinforced by the fact that almost all the figures look out of the canvas, full face turned to the viewer. Indeed, the exhibition is titled "After the Theatre of Absurdity" "" an amoral, rather than immoral universe.

Ask the 32-year-old artist where the images come from, and he's noncommittal "" "Here and there...some friends...what I've seen."

Surrounded by the comforts of upper-middle-class domesticity in his apartment in Jangpura Extension, there does not seem to be any trace of angst that might account for the rather cynical commentary on contemporary urban social mores which one can read into Farhad's canvases.

Instead, he speaks, quite candidly, of a very conscious study of the market, trends in international art, of the need to stand out and be a success. "I don't think much; whenever I feel like it I go to malls, buy a few shirts."

The artist as purveyor of art as a marketable commodity? Well, given the booming prices of art, it would be idealistic, even unrealistic to suppose that any artist would remain unaware of the market value of his work.

Especially for someone as young as Farhad, just two years out of college (a post diploma from MS University, Vadodara) who has seen prices of his canvases shoot up to more than Rs 10 lakh.

To be sure, Farhad exhibits complete control of his skill, a surety of line and drawing, a unerring instinct for composition (which, given that his canvases are quite large and crowded, is quite a tall order) and colour, that bears out the market's faith in his being a talent to watch out for.

It helps too that so early in his career, Farhad has stumbled upon a vocabulary that is mature and complete in itself. You could see it in his show, last year, at Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai, although the sexual, outrageous element was largely absent there.

"I'm working on it," he says, "and the next batch of work will see some changes. The interiors will become more interior, as it were, stylised in places, the sexual expressions more pronounced."