A striking magenta colored quilt shows a woman’s face raising her hand in protest. Featured prominently on a dark brown background, this piece of fabric emits a fierce warmth through fast, carefully applied stitches. Who is he and what is his story?
In this artwork titled Blanket of Solidarity (Quilt on Satin, 2020) by Raha Naqvi, the multi-disciplinary artist documents the fight of several hundred Muslim women who participated in a peaceful sit-in at Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh denouncing the CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) and NRC (National Register of Citizens). Facing unbearable cold, women used quilts and blankets to stay warm and continue the resistance. In this piece, the body of an assertive woman with a marginalized religious identity is seen interacting with the quilt, intimate and necessary to protect one’s body while keeping one from the cold, showing us how bodies are revealed when protesting.
Several such works, offering multiple viewpoints about the body in protest, love, pain and desire, are now part of Udal, Reading the Body from the Avatar collection at Alliance Française, Madras till January 13. According to a release, the artefacts from South Asia cover the gamut of pre-modern imagery, from secular Rajput miniatures, contemporary ritual apparatus and folk art to 19th century Company paintings.
Art by Raha Naqvi | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Curator Shruti Parthasarathy says, “There is primacy of the human body. Through it lies the centrality of all our experiences. It has life, identity, memory and presence. But at the same time, there is mortality which one has to contend with all the time.” “As you move through the exhibition a narrative is created with different understandings of the body. And I wanted to bring a complexity to this display of the body in art, particularly about the body being political,” she says, highlighting the artists on display, including prominent Indian artist and philosopher KG Subramanian, whose work engages the body and imagination; and Somnath Hore, whose deeply abstract work tells us about the inner workings of blood, bone and muscle. It makes the body appear weak, even mortal. Not to be forgotten is Atul Dodia’s Dancing Dervish and Trussed Bull, painted in brilliant white, in the style of Tyeb Mehta when the former heard of Mehta’s demise in 2009.
Art by KG Subramanian | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Also on display is artist Arpita Singh, whose beautiful paintings depict the body of an aging woman who wears none of society’s oppressive demands to stay young and fit; It is placed right next to FN Souza’s artwork, which depicts a female nude in soft, sensual light.
All the objects on display are from the collection of art collector and entrepreneur Jaiveer Johal, who started the Avatar Foundation in 2024 with the aim of bringing the best of Indian contemporary art to Chennai and taking contemporary art from here to other parts of the country. Speaking about this exhibition, the collector says that it is easy to see a completely straightforward piece of the female body form by Indian contemporary artist Jamini Roy. The viewer then moves on to see the body without the body through works such as Prabhakar Kamble’s chandelier made of ropes, metal, brass bells, cowries, leather, terracotta pots, etc., which celebrate working class communities, especially Dalits, whose labor has been fundamental to India’s development.
Untitled by Arpita Singh | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
An interesting aspect of the display is also the many expressions of male nudity. Take for example Pallavi Singh’s five-panel work titled The Bather, where a woman gazes at a man with long, wavy hair in a bathtub. Like the sensual makeup often used for women grooming themselves, this and another painting by Lakshya Bhargava show a rare image of a man shaving his leg. Painted on plywood, the texture lends itself to a playfulness, making it appear as if there is actually hair on the canvas.
Shruti says, “The aim of the exhibition is to look at the body in many different lights, including wounded, intimate, political and around other beings. It aims to bring to the fore the centrality of the body to the human experience. The body is ultimately the home we carry.”
YouDal Reading the Body from the Avatar Collection is at Alliance Française, Nungambakkam, Madras till January 13. Avatar is doing curated walks throughout the month. For details, check out @avtarfoundation on Instagram
published – December 10, 2025 03:00 PM IST