The world is in turmoil.
Humanity is under siege.

Compassion and sanity are increasingly beaten hollow by cruelty, inequality, greed and subjugation.
When reality gets dystopian, art tries to portray this haplessness through words, imagery, symbolism, satire and occasionally with powerful imagery.

Art begins to question and tries to light a path to redemption. Viewers of art then get an opportunity to introspect on life and contemplate society’s progress and regress.

This exhibition – Shape without Form, Shade without Colour – highlights over 40 seminal works of art ranging from the 19th century to current times. A body of work which, we hope, will provoke questions and try to restore a semblance of sanity and solace.

The title is derived from The Hollow Men, one of the most celebrated poems of the 20th century by T.S. Eliot, describing a desolate and barren world inhabited by hapless and defeated people.

We invite viewers to spend time with this rare body of work, to feel the shape without form and introspect about the shade without colour.

Rakhi Sarkar

Director & Curator
CIMA – Centre of International Modern Art
Kolkata