Minimalist Memoirs

A retrospective exhibition celebrating the work of artist Himmat Shah gives an insight into his artistic practices and minimalistic approach towards arts

Known for his abstract terracotta and bronze heads, veteran artist Himmat Shah’s supreme drawing techniques, his class apart colour etchings and his ability as a printmaker has almost gone unnoticed. Tracing his contribution to modern Indian art, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) is presenting a retrospective show titled “Hammer of the Square, Himmat Shah, A Retrospective (1957-2015)”, and features over 300 works. Along with his well-known terracotta sculptures and bronze works, the retrospective includes his lesser-known mediums — burnt paper collages, drawings and silver paintings.

This exhibition gives an insight on how Himmat brought the idea of minimalism into the Indian art industry. Roobina Karode, director and chief curator, KNMA, says, “This show is Himmat’s first ever retrospective and some of the works on display are being exhibited after a gap of 45 years and more. This is a great opportunity for younger generations of artists who have been inspired by the artist to view his oeuvre in a comprehensive way.”

Himmat never believed in categorising his works into painting or sculpture. In fact, his continuous involvement with drawing as a creative medium must be quite radical in the early 1960s when most artists were drawn to working more and more in oil on canvas, while Himmat enjoyed paper and the economy of pencil, crow quill and the ink pen. “The exhibition draws attention to the fact that his silver paintings are sculptural, his bronze sculptures are architectural and his terracotta heads fuse aspects of sculpture and drawing,” explains Roobina.

The exhibit highlights the key ideas in his works: fragility and transience of existence, avers Roobina. “If there is an Indian artist who possesses the free-spiritedness of the bohemian and has embraced the emancipatory disposition of art, it has to be Himmat, whose artistic life can be mapped by a similar prolonged nomadic existence that took him from one city to another, from one barsaati to another, and while for many years he had no permanent roof over his head, his indomitable spirit remained undiminished and artistic sincerity uncompromised,” shares Roobina.

The exhibition is anchored on his drawings, the language that he visually thinks in, and they run as a thread through the entire exhibition, juxtaposed along with his burnt paper collages, bronze portraits, terracotta cast object-sculptures and iconic heads. The viewers get a chance to understand his relationship between temporary layers and stasis, his intense connects and understanding of materials and the material world. She says, “Himmat believes that art is an ‘unreasoned act of being’. The creative process is exhilarating because it is mysterious and cannot be explained in words. It has to be experienced.”

According to the artist, art has always been his inner necessity and cannot be served by any external function. Talking about his artistic approach, Roobina says, “One of the stories he shared with me was on one of his escapades to the desert with no form of sustenance, as if to test his own resilience and endurance. The hostility of the desert could hardly suppress his creative urge and Himmat started making huge on-site sculptures by assembling all material that he found there.”