Art in the ctrl, alt, delete world

Arun Pandit’s last show at the Visual Arts Gallery in Delhi was described as a milestone in the evolution of a sculptor who uses personal experience to create sculptures that speak in the rhythm of the human metaphor. 

Looking at Pandit’s works in this show he recalls the words of Harold Rosenberg - 'A contemporary painting or sculpture is a species of centaur—half art  materials half words'-  as he creates images that are blurred in the light of the internet frustrations and experiences that happen when we are faced with the kinetic words, what he describes as - Error 404.

Arun explains his experience and his journey, 'For me the internet experience is a kind of disorientation which is the beginning and end and in that way it’s like  a closed question, that operates  in a basic perceptual textbook in the human psyche, which also tells the  reader, "You see the image one way, and if you turn it in space then it becomes different experientially." But in my work I also have a peculiar kind of  disorientation that comprises the entirely of the invitation  to the viewer because it  engenders in him or her a level of curiosity like never before.'

Pandit’s work is about analysis. He doesn’t want the sculptural pieces to be an act of analysis by themselves. He wants the pieces to be the collective conscious  clump that his art  is analyzing. Whether it be the couple reading the newspaper, or the mirrored bull he  wants all the aspects that he is juxtaposing  to be pushing against each other at once and as a unit. Pandit  says: ' I’m not interested in taking things apart, I’m interested in what happens when they stay together, when they are together.'

The power of this show lies in its ability to draw the viewer into its maw. Pandit also draws our attention to  the image of art as a tool-because sculpture  is part of the larger question of what that tool of thought  is used for.