Palash Bhattacharjee: January 2023

Sunday, January 1, 2023

ID

LED neon and two-channel video installation with sound
19th Asian Art Biennale, National Art Gallery, Shilpakala Academy, Dhaka
Materials: LED neon , red carpet, wooden frame and two TV

I developed a self-examined method for this work based on my everyday encounters with social and national identification and verification. Here, two words in Bengali 'দরকারি কাগজপত্র' and the words translated into English, 'Documents Required,' are shown in the center of the wall in LED neon to show the tendency toward verification. The opposite of those texts is a red carpet on the floor, followed by two videos on two TV sets, both responding to the central texts, with one video showing typing letters and the other showing blurry fingerprints.

Photo Courtesy: Sheik Nafi Hassan

Video sample

'Palash Bhattacharjee entered the scene armed with an array of performative arsenals. Alongside photo-video installations developed from his performances and site-specific installations, he inserted another crucial element, namely sound. From his early works based on photo and video installations in 2009 to that of his more recent near-absurd performances and video installations, he articulates the neural through the experiential. Since 2011, he set in motion a practice that forked into two divergent and also overlapping strands – video and performance. His single or multi-channel videos and performances are the result of his meditations on body's communion with spatial reality often set in a temporal framework. His reorganizes multiple approaches as he sets out to restore an event from life, which is at once overwhelming and abstract. Muted and distant in their articulation, his works seem to test the water at the edge. Still, Palash's 'reality' leaves no room for illusion.'

-New Media the locus of rebirth, Shahman Moishan with Sharmillie Rahman and Mustafa Zaman, page 36-37, 22th Issue, Depart Magazine, ISSN 2310-6832