‘The universe in itself’ – the ‘Body’ – inspires a new exhibit. It showcases five talented contemporary artists who are exploring new territories of the body.

The five artists, who form part of the show, are Anupam Sud, Gogi Saroj Pal, Mithu Sen, Puneet Kaushik and Shambhavi Singh. Their work is on view at New Delhi based Art Alive Gallery (April 2009) as part of a thematic show curated by Geeti Sen. It draws from the Kabir verse: ‘Yaggate antara baag bageeche.

The line expresses that ‘the body holds, within a garden of riches.’ A similar centrality is there to ‘body’ by a medieval tantric poet Sahara, who describes how he went on a pilgrimage to different places; to discover how the sacred mountains and rivers were all to be there found within himself. As conceived by Malavika Sarukkai, the ‘body’ is also to be the ‘vessel’, receiving cosmic energy. It holds several meanings and is a central form in various art forms.

The curator of the art show, Geeti Sen, notes “For some artists, the ritualistic/magical and the symbolic significance of the ‘body’ is to be drawn from traditional values. For others it is reclaimed as identity, or as the psychic self, derived from the individual’s contemporary values.”

Graphics of the ‘body’ by Anupam Sud have pioneered a wholly different way of looking where the woman is, as the artist states, ‘empowered, yes, but still vulnerable.’ From the late 1980s Anupam started focusing on one single figure – pushed up close to the frame – naked, palpably alive and very powerful.

Artist Gogi Saroj Pal has worked on the metamorphosis of the ‘body’ since 1990, parodying her earlier (male) representations of the woman as nature, to be tamed and then domesticated. Her present series focus is no longer on a mythic archetype; it has an emphasis on an individual woman. Mithu Sen represents the younger generation who look to transform the ‘body’ with surreal morbidity.

She fragments the ‘body’, exploring aspects of hair, teeth and tongue, the spine and intestines; these are projected as metaphors of beauty and repulsion, permanence and fragility.

Puneet Kaushik maps the psychic states that affect the ‘body’ as the Alter Ego. The absence of the head tends to reinforce the primal significance of the human ‘body’ that by its posture and parts fragmented well exposes the psychic self. Shambhavi Singh’s series of five acrylics on canvas points out how the ritualistic meaning of the ‘body’ still holds significance.

The exhibit explores the various expressions of the ‘body’ in different mediums like the etching, wire mesh, gouache, acrylic and mixed media. The journey starts in the 1980s, moves on to radical subversion of the ‘body as vessel’ from 2000.