20 May – 30 July 2022

Colours of Freedom is not a definitive historical show. The curatorial intent is to provide a short glimpse of the overall visual space shaped by 75 years of Independence by various generations of artists in India.

We have included excerpts from two landmark films, featured textiles, indigenous subaltern art and of course some veteran and young Indian artists across generations from post-Independent India. The experience is meant to be holistic and a celebration of the creative diversity and freedom of this vast country.

We have started with a slice of Pather Panchali by Satyajit Ray, which is also a homage to the filmmaker in his centennial year. Young Satyajit of the time was greatly inspired by the neorealist ideas of Italian filmmaking. It was all about shooting outdoors in the midst of real life with relatively unknown actors coming from ordinary life. He taught us to look differently at cinema and his cinematic experiments impacted the artistic and cultural nuances of India hugely.

We have placed the veteran Bikash Bhattacharjee as well in this section, as he was equally inspired by the neorealist ideas of Bicycle Thieves, a film by the Italian director, Vittorio De Sica. Bikash’s works also talk about the ordinary and hapless in their real life surroundings, occasionally bordering on magic realism.

Works by over fifty leading artists across generations, 1947 onwards, have been featured in this exhibition. While we have selected some leading veteran modernists we have also featured seminal works by relatively less exhibited artists, unknown weavers and daring visual renderings by subaltern and indigenous masters.

Indian art has imbibed the essence of various cultures and civilisations and created a fascinating visual vocabulary which is uniquely its own. This we notice across creative genres, crafts, weaving, cinema and, of course, the visual arts.

Colours of Freedom is all about celebrating that wonderful amalgamation of ideas, forms, iconography and colours, resulting in a unique and magical experience.

Rakhi Sarkar
Director & Curator
CIMA – Centre of International Modern Art, Kolkata