Everyday objects often go unnoticed owing to their familiarity. But in the hands of a skilled artist, these objects can jolt viewers to question their perception of reality. Meret Oppenheim’s Breakfast in Fur — a cup and saucer covered completely in fur — for instance, succeeded in both attracting and repelling viewers with its veiled eroticism. Debashish Paul did something similar in his show, A Thousand Years of Dreaming (held at Emami Art recently). Threads, cowrie shells, thick art paper, beads, latex are all objects that one has encountered. There is nothing extraordinary about them but, in Paul’s hands, they turn into the most unsettling pieces that get under the skin of the viewer and provide a glimpse of the queer experience in India.
Paul meticulously sews thick bunches of cowrie shells and beads onto swathes of latex that look like human beings have been skinned and their insides put on display. Many small, almond-shaped eyes dot the skin, staring back at the viewers. Some of the pieces take the form of creatures that might seem like freaks at first — because they do not fit in — but they are all the same under the skin.
The Skin of Dreams 1 by Debashish Paul.
The overarching theme across the show is encapsulated in the video installation in which Paul performs in a barren expanse of land after donning one of his artworks like a second skin. Together with a wedding band and a white horse, the protagonists played by Paul and his lover try to embrace but do not quite succeed, suffocating under the weight of the second, latex skin that they put on perhaps to hide their true identity from the world. They wear heavy, ornate sehra-like pieces on their heads and circumambulate an imaginary fire, with the threads adorning them being made from the sacred maulis that are integral to weddings. Social acceptance of their relationship remains elusive though and Paul is left supine on the ground, crying from frustration and pain. The video aims for poignance, but the acting in it detracts somewhat from the impact of the pieces themselves.
