How Perfect Perfection Can Be, 2015 |
Watercolour drawing on Wasli paper and |
PVC on acrylic |
32x22.5 inches |
Graph: Chances of Sandy level flooding |
in New York City, over current century |
How Perfect Perfection Can Be, 2015 |
Watercolour drawing on Wasli paper and |
PVC on acrylic |
32x22.5 inches |
Graph: Chances of Sandy level flooding |
in New York City, over current century |
How Perfect Perfection Can Be, 2015 |
Watercolour drawing on Wasli paper and |
PVC on acrylic |
32x22.5 inches |
Left Graph: Economists view of Sandy |
Storm in New York City |
Right Graph: Total and elderly mortality |
during July 1980 heat wave in New York |
City |
How Perfect Perfection Can Be, 2015 |
Watercolour drawing on Wasli paper and |
PVC on acrylic |
32x22.5 inches |
Left Graph: Carbon Pollution 10, |
000 BC- 2000 AD |
Right Graph: Metrics Tons of Carbon per |
year, 1950-2010 |
How Perfect Perfection Can Be, 2015 |
Watercolour drawing on Wasli paper and |
PVC on acrylic |
32x22.5 inches |
Left Graph: Survey of risks to human |
Health, safety or prosperity due to global |
warming |
Right Graph: Cumlative Global Fossil- |
Fuel CO2 Emmisions 337 billion tons |
carbon released from 1751 to 2007 |
How Perfect Perfection Can Be, 2015 |
Watercolour drawing on Wasli paper and |
PVC on acrylic |
32x22.5 inches |
Graph: Global mean temperature, |
1998-2008 |
How Perfect Perfection Can Be, 2015 |
Watercolour drawing on Wasli paper and |
PVC on acrylic |
32x22.5 inches |
Graph: Cumulative number of M> 3 |
earthquakes 1973-2014 |
How Perfect Perfection Can Be, 2015 |
Watercolour drawing on Wasli paper and |
PVC on acrylic |
32x22.5 inches |
Graph: Global carbon emissions from |
fossil fuel burning, 1950-2003 |
How Perfect Perfection Can Be, 2015 |
Watercolour drawing on Wasli paper and |
PVC on acrylic |
32x22.5 inches |
Graph: Energy related CO2 emissions, |
China and Unites States, 1990-2012 |
How Perfect Perfection Can Be, 2015 |
Watercolour drawing on Wasli paper and |
PVC on acrylic |
32x22.5 inches |
Graph: Carbon intensity of the world’s |
energy, 1966-2013 |
How Perfect Perfection Can Be, 2015 |
Installation view |
Chemould Art Gallery |
Mumbai, India |
How Perfect Perfection Can Be, 2015 |
Installation view |
Chemould Art Gallery |
Mumbai, India |
How Perfect Perfection Can Be, 2015 |
Installation view |
Chemould Art Gallery |
Mumbai, India |
How Perfect Perfection Can Be, 2015 |
Tana |
Single channel video projection, |
10 minutes |
Installation view |
Chemould Art Gallery |
Mumbai, India |
How Perfect Perfection Can Be, 2015 |
Karvy |
Single channel video projection, |
16.8 minutes |
Installation view |
Chemould Art Gallery |
Mumbai, India |
How Perfect Perfection Can Be, 2015 |
Watercolour drawing on Wasli paper and PVC on acrylic |
32x22.5 inches |
As an artist, the architectural perfection, the scale, design elements and its functionality achieved by the human beings are immensely impressive and create a kind of visual pleasure for me. But what does one do when one is also conscious of the mega city like New York producing more heat trapping gasses than all of Central America and Mexico combined- accelerating climate change giving way to environmental degradation.
The water color drawings from the series How Perfect Perfection Can Be are as much a tribute to imaginative and creative human minds and laboring hands as a critique of celebration of urbanization. How to deal with the contradictory times we are living in, and one’s own dreams and concerns and questions, whether there could be a turning...?
The drawings of specific sites I photographed and in New York in 2008 and 2016 are disrupted by the superimposed climate change diagrams of specific years.
Characteristically the diagram includes reductive renderings, and if not read, the minimal form alone does not reveal the seriousness of the situations…
In the context of How Perfect Perfection Can Be, the video Tana and inclusion of certain parts of the loom, Hatha, phanni, and Tossar signify the perfection required in the process of warping of the threads and weaving for which each thread has to be perfectly arranged. Visually the process is like watching an instrument being tuned before the concert. But weaving an extremely sustainable profession which causes no environmental damage is on the decline due to limitless industrial development projects.
Also Included is a video Karvi. Karvi flower blooms once in 7 years in the Western Ghats. What intrigues me about the wild Karvi is that the flower lasts only for 15-20 days but the Western Ghats fill with popping sound of dried up seed pods simultaneously as the first drops of rain fall on them, spreading the seeds for the next bloom 7 years later. Magic in nature will gradually disappear if concretization of these areas continue.
Between Memory and History, 2006 | |
11x38x36 feet | |
Steel, paper, soft sculpture, | |
Video audio & text | |
Installation in process | |
Exhibition Bombay Maximum City | |
Lille, France |
Between Memory and History, 2001-06 |
11x38x36 feet |
Steel, paper, soft sculpture, |
Video audio & text |
Installation view |
Exhibition Bombay Maximum City |
Lille, France |
Between Memory and History, 2001-06 |
11x38x36 feet |
Steel, paper, soft sculpture, |
Video audio & text |
Installation view |
Exhibition Bombay Maximum City |
Lille, France |
Between Memory and History, 2006 | |
11x38x36 feet | |
Steel, paper, soft sculpture, | |
Video audio & text | |
Installation view | |
Exhibition Bombay Maximum City | |
Lille, France |
Between Memory and History, 2001-06 |
11x38x36 feet |
Steel, paper, soft sculpture, |
Video audio & text |
Exhibition Bombay Maximum City |
Lille, France |
Between Memory and History, 2001-06 |
11x38x36 feet |
Steel, paper, soft sculpture, |
Video audio & text |
Exhibition Bombay Maximum City |
Lille, France |
Between Memory and History, 2001-06 |
11x38x36 feet |
Steel, paper, soft sculpture, |
Video audio & text |
Exhibition Bombay Maximum City |
Lille, France |
Between Memory and History, 2001-06 |
11x38x36 feet |
Steel, paper, soft sculpture, |
Video audio & text |
Exhibition Bombay Maximum City |
Lille, France |
Between Memory and History, 2003 |
11x40x40 feet |
Steel, paper, soft sculpture, |
Video audio & text |
Installation view |
Exhibition Liminal Zones |
Apeejay Media Gallery |
New Delhi |
Between Memory and History, 2003 |
Video projection on glass building |
Exhibition Liminal Zones |
Apeejay Media Gallery |
New Delhi |
Between Memory and History, 2001 |
11x40x35 feet |
Steel, paper, soft sculpture, |
video, audio & text |
Installation view |
Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai |
Between Memory and History, 2001 |
11x40x35 feet |
Steel, paper, soft sculpture, |
video, audio & text |
Installation view |
Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai |
Between Memory and History, 2001 |
14x12x16 feet |
Steel, paper |
video, audio & text |
Exhibition |
Century City Bombay/Mumbai: |
City Politics and Visual Culture in the 90’s |
Between Memory and History, 2001 |
14x12x16 feet |
Steel, paper |
video, audio & text |
Exhibition Century City Bombay/Mumbai: |
City Politics and Visual Culture in the 90’s |
Tate Modern, London |
Between Memory and History, 2001-06 |
11x38x36 feet |
Steel, paper, soft sculpture, |
Video audio & text |
Exhibition Bombay Maximum City |
Lille, France |
© Navjot Altaf. All rights reserved.