HYBRID FORMS

Mythic Femininities at DAG Delhi brings together a well-chosen crosssection of the late GOGI SAROJ PAL'S large body of work

- Aditya Mani Jha

During one of the last recorded interviews with the artist Gogi Saroj Pal (19452024), who passed away in January, she talks at length about her Kamdhenu seD ries of paintings, created between 1989 and 1998. These works feature a hybrid woman-cow figure in a variety of situations, reflecting the constrictive roles into which society forces women, not to mention the constant extraction of domestic and emotional labour (akin to the relentless milking of a cow). The interview (by Ankan Kazi) has been published in the accompanying catalogue for Mythic Femininities, the Gogi Saroj Pal retrospective at Delhi's DAG that shall run till May 25. In it, Pal says, "People in our culture make constant comparisons of human behaviour with animals. Especially for women-if someone is well-behaved, she is said to be like a cow. But a cow is not asked about its own will or wishes, is it? The Kamdhenu works reflect this directly."