GIEVE PATEL AND THE ART OF FRIENDSHIP

Poet, painter, playwright Gieve Patel died a year ago. At a special exhibition and discussion dedicated to his memory in Delhi, some of the veteran artists of India, his friends, sat around a table talking Gieve, man and art.

- PARAMITA GHOSH

The end of The Iliad is marked by two funerals and a rage. In the 23rd book of the epic poem, the great Greek hero Achilles mourns the death of his friend Patroclus with lamentations, funeral games, feasts, war cries. Over the corpse of Hector, the mourning is quieter, deeper.

Something of the latter spirit hung over an evening gathering in Delhi recently in memoriam of Bombay poet, painter, playwright Gieve Patel. Patel died a year ago; for his friends, there has been no closure. At Delhi's Vadehra Art Gallery, seven of his friends and artists—Sudhir Patwardhan, Ranjit Hoskote, Gulam Mohammed and Nilima Sheikh, Ranbir Kaleka, and Anju and Atul Dodiya—sat around a table talking about him in what can only be called an uninterrupted public wake, whose object seems to have been the creation of memory about Patel, so as to talk about his place and the place of his art in their lives, and in the world.

Gieve Patel developed his art in parallel to what is called the 'Baroda Group', of which India's second-generation Modernists—Bhupen Khakhar, Gulammohammed Sheikh, Nalini Malani and Sudhir Patwardhan—were members. Some of his subjects are marginal figures, ironic anti-portraits, a unique depiction of violence, and birds and animals as part of the human being's ecosystem mirroring his fate.

A special exhibition, titled, 'A Show of Hands', curated by poet, critic, playwright Ranjit Hoskote was also mounted on the occasion. The exhibition featuring a collection of works by artists Aditi Singh, Anju Dodiya, Atul Dodiya, Areez Katki, Biraaj Dodiya, Gulammohammed Sheikh, Jitish Kallat, Mahesh Baliga, Nilima Sheikh, Ranbir Kaleka, Ratheesh T., Sudhir Patwardhan and Sujith S.N. is on view across Vadehra's modern and contemporary gallery spaces till January 10, 2025.