Nai studied design and painting at the L.S. Reheja School of Art in Mumbai, but the thought of all this leftover fabric and the pain caused by his father’s bankruptcy drove the artist to rethink his practice. He began to incorporate all manner of everyday materials into his work — canvas, threads, textiles — giving them a new life.
Hessian fabric is used everywhere in Mumbai: for wrapping materials which travel around India and across the world in the building trade, and even serving as mattresses for the thousands of immigrant workers that the city plays host to and provides a living for.
Manish Nai. Photo by Anne Maniglier
Nai’s oeuvre is an ode to the city and its workers; workers who travel tens of kilometers on suburban “commuter” trains to reach their place of work; who sleep on hessian sheets on the floor; who prepare the best Bhelpuri in the city, which rich and poor alike fight over every day at the time when chaat — meaning Indian snacks — are served from roadside food stalls; and who give the city its life and vibrancy, whilst at the same time trying to respect its universal values, most crucially that of work.
Mumbai, Manish’s home town, is the place where he grew up body and soul. It is a city of people who work hard but keep a low profile - an Indian variation of the maxim, “work hard in order to gain more” (where the notion of ‘gain’ takes on a spiritual sense as much as a purely material one).
Untitled © Manish Nai. Courtesy Galerie Karsten Greve Köln, Paris, St Moritz
Nai worked hard and with the help of his assistants his pieces began to gain recognition, first in in the calm simplicity of the workshop, and progressively in exhibitions and biennials, most notably Shanghai in 2012 and then Kochi in 2014 where the artist-curator Jitish Kallat rightly opted for an imposing round work by the artist, made entirely from indigo hessian and wood (Untitled, 2014). Mannish was reluctant at first, but then gave in. This solid hessian canvas, dyed, knotted and collaged, develops and amplifies its force through its roundness. Presented in the Karsten Greve gallery, in a space at last worthy of the work, it sits naturally, with no surrounding artifice, and takes over the three-dimensional space around it. The work of Nai exhibited by the gallery gives a rapid glimpse into Indian life, but also brings together, through its use of fabric remnants and photos from advertising panels (the Digits series, 2016), all the secrets of this strange megalopolis where everything mingles and becomes clear when one knows how to be patient and to observe. A constant theme in Nai’s work is the part left to chance – serendipity, ‘happy accident’, is an essential element of his approach. During the FIAC, Karsten Greve will present a series of drawings in dry pastel which demonstrate the artist’s perfect mastery of the medium.
Digits XIII (2016) © Manish Nai. Courtesy Galerie Karsten Greve Köln, Paris, St Moritz
Interview by Anne Maniglier & Clotilde Scordia
Galerie Karsten Greve
Manish Nai, “Matter as Medium”
Until 29 October 2016
