Art for the public

Place: MUMBAI 

The facade with the cobweb, made up of thousands of stamp pads

A cobweb is not something you usually stop and look at. For this one however, you will. It’s a cobweb that covers the entire front façade of the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum in Mumbai, the city’s public museum. It is made of 30,000 rubber stamps strung together. Look closely and you discover names of Mumbai roads and places now known by their new names. Arthur Road, Churchgate, Flora Fountain, Victoria Terminus, Kings Circle, and many more. 

The work has been created for ZegnArt Public, a project started by Italian luxury fashion house Ermenegildo Zegna, and its first stop is India. There are three sections to ZegnArt - Public Art, Special Projects and Art in Global Stores. The first country chosen for Public Art section of the ZegnArt project was announced last year as India and the selected institution - the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum in Mumbai. The Public section will move next to Turkey and then Brazil. 

Anna Zegna, Tasneem Zakaria Mehta, Gildo Zegna and Reema Kallat
at the launch of the work at the museum

Two members of the Zegna family, CEO Gildo Zegna and Anna Zegna, Image Director, were on hand recently to launch the first of the various country initiatives that the brand will undertake in the near future. “This project is about growth in the sense of culture,” said Gildo Zegna, saying it started with the thought that where is no culture, there is no growth. “We see that our customer is more and more interested in culture related to design, art and fashion,” he said. “We want to improve relationships between our countries. What we have started here is important to us. We are aware that contemporary culture nourishes our business every day, whether directly or indirectly. ZegnArt is our active contribution to it, a mark of our presence within it, and our dialogue with it.” 

The work, Cobweb/Crossings, is by Reena Kallat, who was selected from a list of 20 long listed artists under the age of 50 who had a considerable body of work. Tasneem Zakaria Mehta, Director of the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum, formerly the Victoria and Albert Museum, elaborated on the painstaking process to select the artist by a panel of curators. Including Kallat, seven artists were shortlisted - A Balasubramaniam, Atul Bhalla, Gigi Scaria, Hema Upadhyay, Sakshi Gupta and Srinivasa Prasad. “We had to think about the artwork, how it would create the dialogue for the reasons of this artwork. The intention was to push the envelope, lead people to think about the art work, what was it and why,” she explained. 

Indophile Anna Zegna, passionate about the project, stressed on the space of public art. “In Italy, there is a lot of public art, while in India, the public space is very different,” she said. “Art is not a luxury. Our family has always recognized quality, value and innovation, and it works for our brand too. The quality of artists in India is very good, and it needs to be supported more,” she stressed. 

A close up of the cobweb, at once spectacular and thought provoking

There are 55 roads that Kallat identified for this project - Cobweb/Crossings, all roads whose colonial names were changed to make them sound indigenous. Kallat says she wanted to explore the idea of how names change a city’s memory and imagination and whether renaming changes how a space is seen. “A cobweb is evocative of time and just as a room is left vacant; stories that are not visited gather cobwebs that appear to hold the dust from the past,” Kallat said. The rubber stamp has been part of Kallat’s art in the part, who is intrigued by its shape as well as its associations – bureaucratic red tape bureaucratic and almost thoughtless approvals. The work incorporates these, ensuring the masses engage with art in public spaces.

Putting together the work was quite a challenge, and the project will remain for the next three months. Mehta said the project is also expected to travel. “We are also planning an interactivity around it – there is a sense that this will also be the start of a process of archiving the city,” she said. Given that it is next to the much visited city zoo, and in a central location, the massive work is expected to make at least some take a pause and think. 

Stair, well

It's not as rickety as it looks! 

Place: MUMBAI

Even as staircases go out of fashion, here is a stairwell that I had to stop and admire the first time I saw it. At the Royal Bombay Yacht Club, where I was fortunate to stay a few times. Each time I have paid homage to this relic of bygone era, but so grand and aesthetic. Semi circular-ish in shape, it's sides are adorned with lovely stained glass windows and today as flower pots as additional adornments.

It is made of wood, and has a single elevator going up four floors. It has an operator at all times, and is rather slow compared to its modern counterparts. But once inside, it is oh so magical. Visit it, do next time you are at the Gateway. 

Auto pilot

We shall be Mercs soon! The CKD factory at Chakan near Pune

Place: CHAKAN 

A view of the Mercedes assembly line at its Chakan CKD plant near Pune.

It was amazing to see the extent of precision and detailing in the cars. Especially as this was just a factory where the parts are assembled, they are not manufactured here. Sales in India do not still justify a manufacturing facility.

It took us hours to see a various car parts from one assembly to another in as each little part was added. There was testing too, and it felt a bit like the movies to see these fancy getting tested. The 100 acre plant was one the fastest automotive greenfield projects completed in India, and Mercedes had in on priority as it was getting overtaken by competitors in the Indian luxury car space. Well, whether they catch up or not, this is a new benchmark for Indian auto factories. 

Test drive

A Nano on a test drive ahead of its launch

Place: PUNE

Early bird. An early Nano on a test drive on the roads of Pune. There was such enormous curiosity about the car then, and it was thrilling to see it up close. The flimsiness was apparent even then, right?

As Tata's gift to the lower middle classes, it alternately had the dream of making every Indian who earned even a little a car owner and the nightmare of Indian roads getting clogged by these little beetles. Well, neither happened, or rather the clogging of cities had other reasons, and the dream of the lower MC buying cars remains unfulfilled as not many bought into the dream.

Yes, Ratan Tata bemoaned the missed opportunity, but then selling a substandard product had not prevented the group from selling well before! 

Criminal waste

Film spools at NFAI, Pune

Place: PUNE

Original spools of Ritwik Ghatak's Meghe Dhaka Tara lying on the floor along with many others at the National Film Archives of India in Pune.

As you can see, the condition of these irreplaceable parts of India's cinematic history, indeed contemporary India's history, are in such a pathetic condition. This visit had brought tears to my eyes, and I wanted to shout at the head of the institute, who happened to be there at the time. But I guess the government of India has appropriated numerous national assets that they did not create, and therefore know not its real value. And only half hearted efforts at preserving them. 

Some private initiatives are doing film restoration of Indian films, but considerable parts of our cinematic history are gone already :(