Karnataka-based sculptor L N Tallur, known for his irreverent constructions that are a comment on passage of time, the follies of human endeavours and consumerist sentimentality, is now showcasing his latest works here.
Titled "Ukai (Cormorant Fish Hunting)" Tallur's recent show is being hosted by the Nature Morte Gallery and the artist uses it as a metaphor to show human greed.
Ukai, is Japanese word for a sport of fishing by employing cormorant birds, a technique developed in medieval China and Japan which travelled to Europe in the 17th century.
In order to control the cormorants, the fisherman ties a snare near the base of the bird's throat which prevents it from swallowing fish larger than a certain size, enabling the fisherman to retrieve his catch by bringing the bird back to his boat.
The artist says he sees this as a metaphor "for the manipulations of human greed and, more specifically, its currently popular manifestation in the guise of out-sourcing labor through digital telecommunications."
Tallur also exhibited some of his works at an Audi showroom in the city.
His "Elephanta Elephant" is a wooden reproduction of a stone elephant, which once stood at the entrance of Rajbunder Jetty on Elephanta Island.
It broke into pieces when the British tried to transport it to England in 1864 and Tallur's incomplete reproduction, made up of wooden toy blocks, sits below the assembled stone elephant sculpture.
"The sculpture leads to the pertinent question of whether state ownership is less subtle form of colonisation," Tallur told PTI in an interview.
In another work titled ATM or "Anger Therapy Machine", Tallur mixes the current with the colonial.
ATM, connotes a self service money telling machine to today's customer and the artist visually, and in practice takes one back to a past and invites a viewer and a fellow bothered viewer, to cool off their temper.
