OBRA DO DIA

Bhupen Khakhar [India: 1934-2003]

Sir (Ahmed) Salman Rushdie ('The Moor')
Óleo sobre tela, 1995 (1219 mm x 1219 mm)

To write about the work of Bhupen Khakhar is almost superfluous. The titles of his watercolours and paintings as in 'Son is the father of man' (1997), explain meaning and form. This work shows a man with a child on his arm, in the background a local area, the Indian countryside. Male couples sit and stand inside, on top and outside the little houses. The homo-erotic atmosphere, which is prominent in 'Son is the father of man', is a major theme in the works of Bhupen Khakhar. The man in front resembles an icon in the way he holds the baby. The poetic implications of both title and image make us go back and forth between the father and the son, both man, both father, both son. The title seems to hold humanity as a whole in its simple six words. 'Son is the father of man' shows the many aspects of the work of Bhupen Khakhar. It images a daily environment, a landscape in India with houses, people, animals, plants, a landscape with a lake and a mountain.
Bhupen Khakhar was born in a poor area in Bombay in 1934 and was the hope of his family, the only one with a proper education. As an accountant in 1961, he went to Baroda to study arthistory and to develop his painting. This now is still his home-village and Khakhar is not eager to move to a national or even international city. After his first visit to London in 1979, invited by the British Council it was not until 1987 before he painted 'Two men in Benares'. This work meant a break from his earlier work and his first homosexual image. Khakhar made a free passage for younger artists who followed his path. In the sixties and seventies his work was mainly appreciated in Europe. Also dew to auctions of Sotheby's and Christi's in Bombay, from the eighties onwards his work was collected also in India. The fact that he was well known abroad made him even more popular.
Bhupen Khakhar watches, draws, paints and describes his own every day environment. He uses arthistorical and narrative traditions of India. Several of the works in the exhibition show portraits, as in 'His youngest son Nitin also had black teeth' (1995) in which the father forms the frame of the watercolour painted son. Their black teeth are a funny decoration in a serious work. 'Two handsome Twins from Tatangar had a beatific smile' (1995) show two brothers that are different and alike, one in watercolour and the other in charcoal. Where as 'Beggar' from 1997 and 'Man with red scarf' image the street that was left in the eye of our memory. These are portraits of beggars without sentiment; naked, mutilated, real.