Events & Personalities
“Feel the textures”
Ceramicist and curator Adil Writer’s stipulation to gallerist Dr Tarana Khubchandani was "I want dark walls.” As you entered the Gallery your eyes fell on the "clean functional ceramics (both tableware and murals)… no hairy-fairy (sic) concepts and absolutely no metaphors” displayed on tables and on walls.
Above: tableware and mural by Adil Writer (l)
Co-curated with Shayonti Salvi, the show "Table Manners 2” at Gallery Art and Soul on display from September 24-November 6, 2021 displayed works of 18 ceramicists, including Writer’s and Salvi’s. Armed with a prior tip-off from Writer, we move to his mural titled "Food is memories.” "These also are a set of totally functional serving and eating platters…The variation in color and the warm tones of the palette are from a process called soda firing which these clay objects have been subjected to,” he had told us. Forewarned, we peer at the text on the pieces and read the quotes: "A party without cake is just a meeting,” says one. Another proclaims "Whoever put the ‘s’ in fast food was a cheeky little bugger!”
Writer says his round and square platters displayed on a table "could very easily be hung up on the wall as wall panels…. The reason I put them on the table is because I am trying to tell people to resist their Parsi impulses and not hide good tableware inside a glass cupboard but use it in daily life.”
"It is a humdinger that functional tableware has moved away from being the humble bumpkin of sculptural ceramics and is now basking in newfound possibilities… Enjoy the handmade…and the variety of clay processes, firing techniques and signature aesthetics,” stated the brochure, inviting the visitors to "touch some of the work, pick it up, feel the balance, feel the textures, flip it over and see the bottoms, notice the various clay bodies used by artists for their sets.”
Referring to the numeral 2 in the name of the show, Writer stated in the curator’s note: "A decade ago, I co-curated Table Manners-1 at Gallery Square Circle in Auroville featuring artists from Pondicherry, Bangalore and Auroville…Images of the tables shot by photographer Ireno Guerci somehow reached (gallerist) Khubchandani, who for the last decade has been requesting a Part 2 at her space in Bombay.” F. J.
Writer says his round and square platters displayed on a table "could very easily be hung up on the wall as wall panels…. The reason I put them on the table is because I am trying to tell people to resist their Parsi impulses and not hide good tableware inside a glass cupboard but use it in daily life.”
"It is a humdinger that functional tableware has moved away from being the humble bumpkin of sculptural ceramics and is now basking in newfound possibilities… Enjoy the handmade…and the variety of clay processes, firing techniques and signature aesthetics,” stated the brochure, inviting the visitors to "touch some of the work, pick it up, feel the balance, feel the textures, flip it over and see the bottoms, notice the various clay bodies used by artists for their sets.”
Referring to the numeral 2 in the name of the show, Writer stated in the curator’s note: "A decade ago, I co-curated Table Manners-1 at Gallery Square Circle in Auroville featuring artists from Pondicherry, Bangalore and Auroville…Images of the tables shot by photographer Ireno Guerci somehow reached (gallerist) Khubchandani, who for the last decade has been requesting a Part 2 at her space in Bombay.” F. J.
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