Clark House (Bombay)

In the first of a series of inquiry into the emergence of a distinct aesthetic informed by a communist political history in Kerala, Clark House uncovers the practice of the Fort Cochin based painter Mohandas. The exhibition reveals the artist’s close study of New Left ideas that emerged in the 70s, his close relationship with his mentor the Marxist theoretician TK Ramachandran, and his involvement with the Nila Reading Group - a gathering of left-leaning writers and poets publishing association. Mohandas questions the popular motifs, pictograms, and illustrative practice associated with the left movement, and their possible misunderstanding of ideology, through his depictions of pigeon gatherings, women cleaning the Fort Kochi beach, meetings in gardens, and portraits of his wife, the artist Sosa Joseph.