TAKING SOUTH ASIAN ART TO THE WORLD: DURJOY RAHMAN

THE DHAKA-BASED ART COLLECTOR AND PHILANTHROPIST GIVES HELLO! A PEEK INTO HIS ECLECTIC COLLECTION OF BRILLIANT AND RARE ART FROM THE SUBCONTINENT

- SHAIKH AYAZ

Step into Durjoy Rahman’s art-filled home in upscale Dhaka, and you quickly find yourself swept into a world of beauty, creativity and philosophy. Every conversation with him ultimately devolves into art, artists and the stories of their lives, with the 54-year-old Rahman holding forth with great passion and pride about the cultural significance behind many of the masterpieces, relics and objects he owns — and he owns fabulously many!

Rahman is an avid art collector and founder of the influential Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation. His personal collection is marked by a genuine love for South Asian artists. His modern chic house, outfitted with mid-century furniture, is a visual repository of showmanship and imagination. A cursory glance tells you all you need to know — Atul Dodiya’s seminal ‘German Measles: Kiefer’s Cell’ (1999) enlivens one corner. There’s Shilpa Gupta’s ‘Unnoticed’ (2017), a series of three striking photographs taken on the Indo-Bangladesh border. He’s fond of Dodiya and Gupta’s boundary-pushing art and knows both the Mumbai-based artists well.

“From the early days of my collection, I was keen on pop aesthetics and graphics, which is probably why I got interested in Atul and Shilpa’s work in the first place. Both also examine colonialism, displacement and border conflict, which are topics that resonate with me,” he shares.