{"id":9468,"date":"2016-04-08T17:14:00","date_gmt":"2016-04-08T09:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www2.weiling-gallery.com\/gallery\/?post_type=portfolio&p=9468"},"modified":"2016-04-08T17:31:56","modified_gmt":"2016-04-08T09:31:56","slug":"yesterday-in-a-padded-room-essay-by-gowri-balasegaran","status":"publish","type":"portfolio","link":"https:\/\/weiling-gallery.com\/gallery\/portfolio-item\/yesterday-in-a-padded-room-essay-by-gowri-balasegaran\/","title":{"rendered":"“Yesterday in a Padded Room” essay by Gowri Balasegaran"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Yesterday in a Padded Room by Anurendra Jegadeva<\/span><\/p>\n

We live entrenched in a world of absurdity. That view appears to be echoed in Anurendra\u2019s installation Yesterday in a Padded Room. Like much of Anu\u2019s work multiple meanings abound in this elaborate opus \u2013 some are overt, others more subtle, some are humourous, but none is so trenchant as the artist\u2019s commentary on contemporary society. Ostensibly, the work brings to life an extract from the mythic Kedah Annals, a work of Malay literature believed to have originated in the 18th century. Accordingly to the text, Garuda the Hindu deity and the Muslim prophet and monarch Solomon concurred to divide up South-East Asia; land North of the Thai border would be Muslim; land South would become Hindu.The installation depicts a war room: two bling golden thrones, bereft of sitters, languish at the centre of a tarpaulin flooring depicting a sea of shark. The back and seat of each throne has been extracted and replaced with translucent Perspex. Ancient-style head carvings representing Garuda and Solomon protrude from the upper backrest of each throne and leer like gargoyles at us, whilst the seat\u2019s interior is home to an assortment of objects arranged like the innards of a pinball machine. Flashing lights and voices, even, emanate from the chair. Nearby stands a vitrine containing a map of the divided lands and an arrangement of cheap souvenirs and memorabilia. Lining the walls like a lunatic\u2019s cell are padded cushions, painted, printed, decorated and defaced with images of kings and queens, heroes and villains, saints and sinners, entertainers and amateurs, the learned and the fools. We can imagine politicians enthroned in Anu\u2019s padded room, hammering it out over territorial hegemony, their arguments and rhetoric as nonsensical as a madman\u2019s.The trenchancy of Anu\u2019s critique of contemporary society calls to mind Frederick Jameson\u2019s seminal work Post-Modernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism in which the literary critic and political theorist paints a dystopic version of the present. Postmodernism \u2013 which corresponds to the period from the end of late 20th century until the present (although this itself is under debate) \u2013 is the cultural arm of today\u2019s capitalism. It is characterised by a weakening of historicity (historical authenticity), where historical reality is obscured by ideology and where we are obsessed with the present.[1]<\/p>\n

Jameson also wrote of other symptoms of postmodern condition which included: a breakdown of the distinction between high and low culture, resulting in a fascination with the \u2018whole degraded landscape of kitch and schlock (cheap or inferior goods) of TV series and Readers Digest culture\u2019; a new depthlessness which manifests itself both as a superficiality and as a literal flatness (two dimensional screens, flat skyscrapers full of reflecting windows); and lastly a captivation with a whole new technology, which \u2018sees itself as a figure for a whole new economic system,\u2019 and is based on reproduction rather than industrial production[2]. Like Jean Baudrillard, the philosopher, Jameson believed in our inability to tell the real from the simulacrum (copy), nature from artifice, reality from representation.<\/p>\n

Jameson\u2019s description of this social anomie resonates with Anurendra\u2019s installation. Stylistically the work is essentially a sardonic view of our love of the kitch and pastiche; it is a parody of pastiche. We are obsessed with things that appear like the real thing but that no long bear any true resemblance to the real thing. In the installation garish golden thrones, flashing lights and an abundance of dime-store paraphernalia like the Chairman Mao matches, Lady Diana stamps and Monopoly houses and property deeds comprise the \u2018schlock\u2019 of Jameson\u2019s book.<\/p>\n

The portraits on the padded cushions allude to our obsession with fame and celebrity, and the power of the cult of the personality. From Elvis to Stalin to Lord Muruga, they refer to the later 20th century proclivity to iconisise modern day heroes and villains and to transform older historical figures into clinquant icons. Animals too, it seems, with Anu\u2019s pug dog images, are not exempt from this type of iconisation. The mixture of celebrities of different genres in the installation also points to our fascination with fame itself, rather than the merit, or lack thereof, behind the fame. These figures of modern culture embody Jameson\u2019s scenario where trash meets money, where we live for the instant high, where we are \u2018historically deaf\u2019, and where the copy of the copy is taken for the real thing.<\/p>\n

The use of a mythic story based around some historical fact is reminiscent of postmodernism\u2019s weakening of historicity. Myths were developed to \u2018mediate opposites, explain mystery, reconcile polarities, to take away the randomness of life and weave it unto a believable pattern.\u201d[3] They were ancient ways of explaining the unexplainable. In today\u2019s scientific and technologically advanced world, where news can reach the remotest corners of the world with the click of button, we have no need for myth with the truth so readily available. Yet everywhere around us, rumour and scaremongering abound, stereotypical beliefs cloud our judgment, politicians\u2019 rhetoric dominate our everyday discourse and corrupt leaders rewrite history. Indeed, as Yesterday in a Padded Room demonstrates so well, we live in a world entrenched by absurdity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/section>
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