I decided to skip the Prabuddha opening at the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) last night. I don’t think Prabuddha is a photographer whose work needs to be viewed amidst chatter and conversation. Most of his work has been a one on one conversation between his eyes and his subject. Prabuddha’s poetry was personal. Never a social broadcast. It was a headphone. Not a radio. So I decided to do what I have never ever done before. I got into my car this morning from Gurgaon and made my way to the NGMA.
I was all alone at the NGMA. Not a soul in any of the rooms. This is how I wanted to see the show. In silence. With solitude.
And I was aghast at the complete absence of aesthetics in a show meant to showcase the talent of its poster boy. The work was framed with little detail. It was hung in a clumsy fashion. It was a series of erratic stops instead of an unfettered journey.
I wonder why the NGMA did such a shoddy job of it. They should have entrusted it to someone who shared his frame and framework.
His simplicity and sophistication.
At The Delhi Photo Festival, Prabuddha had once famously said: “I want to have a long string of images, held together by grace, because grace is that undefineable, non rational, non linear word that I am looking for…. ”
Prabuddha wouldn’t have found Grace this morning at the NGMA.
She wasn’t there.
Maybe she wasn’t even invited.
(Author of the hugely successful, “This is All I Have to Say”, Swapan Seth runs a community called ‘Sethoscope’ on Facebook. Supremely active on Twitter through his handle @swapanseth, Swapan is also amongst the largest private art collectors in the country.)
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