Sometimes the ordinary things now can become iconic memories in the future.
In a unique gesture, the Embassy of the Dominican Republic in India invited artists Aradhana Seth and Maurice Sanchez to present work from their archives which documents the world of hand ́ -painted signs from India and the Dominican Republic.
The exhibition is open to the public from 5th April to 5th May 2023 at India Habitat Center New Delhi and was inaugurated by Ambassador of the Dominican Republic to India David Puig.
What is fascinating is how art can be seen through everyday life. A religious icon, a national flag, a tempting dish, or an even more tempting body, the simple name of a shop written in ambitious ways, there are so many signs can say.
Nuanced glances can reveal so much. And that is exactly what Seth and Sanchez have done.
The sheer fact that a street from a city in the Dominican Republic and India can intermingle with each other through these signs says how much there is in common despite the vast differences in histories and geographies.
Urban worlds everywhere in some ways share a certain kind of collective dream, dreams that continue to inspire.
Such signs are a vanishing presence in the drastically changing skylines. They represent an ever-changing world, with a simple touch of local flavour.
Handmade street art tells us stories about the people who live in those neighbourhoods – who they are, how they see their cultural identities, and what they desire. Aesthetically, they range from representative to stylised art, caricatures, and imitations of mainstream commercial expressions.
Sánchez and Seth, they are part of a larger family of artistic expression that needs to be chronicled because they are produced by fellow artists with whom they share a similar sentiment: that of observing everyday life and expressing it to a local audience. They represent a direct relationship with the world of commerce, lightly draping the commodity in the costume of a gift – but more transparently than ‘fine art’.
This exhibition is not just an attempt to document their fascinating existence, but also a timely stimulation. By ensuring they remain firmly embedded there, the archiving artists are mischievously incepting our imaginations and reminding us of the larger universe in which all artists and their art live.
The exhibition is open from April 5 to May 5, 2023, at India Habitat Center New Delhi.
