New Delhi   

An artist's reflections on life and suffering

Madhur Tankha

Gunther Uecker at work.

NEW DELHI: The National Gallery of Modern Art in collaboration with Max Mueller Bhavan is organising German artist Gunther Uecker's exhibition of multi-material sculptural installations titled "The Mistreated Man: 14 Pacified Implements" at the NGMA premises here beginning this Thursday.

"My subject is life and death, my failure is my art," says the internationally renowned artist and recipient of several awards. The theme of the exhibition theme is the suffering caused by man's inhumanity to man; suffering that is shared by the artist himself. With this work, Uecker seeks to redefine himself in our present time. Much of his work is like an inner portrait that reflects his vision of life and suffering. Through these large installations, he portrays human pathos and misery that is common to all mankind. With a sensitive touch, he reveals basic human drives such as aggression, injury and destruction that he counters with conciliatory gestures.

In this series of works, Uecker reacts to "the injury of human being by human being" in a style that is typical of his work, with slats of wood, linen, stones, ash, sand, pages of writing and nails. The exhibition grew out of the idea of creating a piece of work that would stand as a self-portrait of the artist, at the same time describing the present state of play of his work and looking back at the past.

Uecker completed the work between autumn 1992 and spring 1993 in his workshop. The fact that the work has gone well beyond mere self-reflection is due to the distressing nature of our present times. These 14 objects or implements -- as Uecker himself calls them -- are something like an inner portrait as he shares with art connoisseurs his vision of life and life's suffering.

Throughout the history of humankind there have been words for all forms of aggressions. Uecker took all of these, wrote them down, first in German and then again in the languages of the lands that this exhibition will pass through.

Since Uecker sees himself as both the perpetrator as well as the victim in this work, it is both a confession and a memorial -- not just a one-sided attribution of blame. Uecker's work on this piece was extensively documented in photographs. There is also a video film that accompanies the exhibition showing the artist in action. The exhibition will be on till September 15.

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