Bhubaneswar-based Kanta Kishor Moharana has been creating newspaper sculptures in marble for the last 10 years

Dark Science of Terrorism

Uma Nair, 24 July 2010, 03:01 PM IST

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Gallery Espace’s Going Going Gone, had two sculptures that zoomed into the value and volatile nature of headlines in newspapers. And Times Of India as a brand became the subject of an artistic composition. Bhubaneswar-based Kanta Kishor Moharana has been creating newspaper sculptures in marble for the last 10 years and he uses a gun and the imaging expression of a smoky map to give us the metaphor of global terrorism as an urban testimony.In many ways this sculpture also talks to us about the idea of visionary morphism and the re-examination of atrocity in the urban milieu.

This sculpture also comments on modern day society, it is like a global anthology of peace talks that have fallen apart of places and people in jeopardy and the resulting aftermath of ensuing disasters. The gun translates the numberless death tropes in the angst ridden time of terrorism. This sculpture tells us that as a society we have become a wounded generation. And in this climate of wounds our trust has been replaced by a series of politically driven controls.The artist’s position is that of an observer who stands helplessly and watches.

He articulates a raw space in which the newspaper becomes his medium and message-in a world that has been suppressed in its quest for mass consumption. A newspaper as a subject can be the instrument for soul searching dynamics.This sculpture affronts us and asks us to understand the basis of events and the sadness of death .The gun created out of bronze and stuck to the marble becomes the epitome of cultic symbolism. It talks to us about the futility of philosophic predicaments and the dark science of global terrorism that has become the definition of humanity’s angst.

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Slums in Neighbourhood is the subject to highlight on Indian Art Fair Mumbai 2009 said Kantakishore

Kanta Kishore has picked the popular slum with a different perspective that essentially deals with the core of the subject


KANTAKISHORE MOHARANA represented by Ashok Art Gallery

Slums in Neighbourhood

Artists are exploring new media and techniques to convince the viewer in the present day. The range of subjects that the artist deals with today is intriguing and relevant. Indian art seems to have transformed from modesty to market and the journey has been interesting too. The turning points of art here depend heavily on the attitude of the artists and what we have noticed is the increase in the intellectual input with passing time. This has carried us forward from the agreement of the narratives in mythology and epics to negotiating society to human awareness of several factors. Our surrounding and social concerns have always motivated us to a new high. Kanta Kishore is no exception.

Kanta Kishore has picked the popular slum with a different perspective that essentially deals with the core of the subject. The effort by the dwellers to construct the beautiful and magnificent in the city remains in the most neglected part of the earth. Their struggle for existence depend on adversities of life and in the process, they sometimes smile up to their success, which is rare, and rest of the times, lament over their survival. In all these conditions, a pair of sleepers perhaps allows them to retain the honour of human while addressing the rough patches leading to life. The chaos of arrangement also depicts the lifestyle of people inhabit. However high or low they might go individually but collectively they remain intact to the nails that bind them to the ground. The insiders story of constructing a world imagined for the other rightly develop the concept of living.

The composition has deliberately caught our concern for the slum and its dwellers. The symbolic is apparent, expressive and transformed; it suggests the simplest of material in high coordination with installation art. The painting complements to the installation by making it look obvious and illustrative. Kanta Kishore has seemingly taken a defensive position in portraying the subject though several aggressive pointers are available to us. The approach to the subject is worth admiration. The awareness to uplift the downtrodden needs more application both politically and socially. The change is coming at a slow pace and it would appear significantly in future. The makeover through the artistic expression is to the concern is remarkable.
Sculpture Review by Dr. Pradosh Kumar Mishra(Art Historian)
Watch out for this growing talent in Art Expo India: Kantakishore Moharana