Ascend the dramatic central stairway that separates the levels of the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston - or look at a painting of it instead. Utilizing the internal architecture of the ICA, Kanishka Raja manipulates time and space in his exhibition, Momentum 3, held in the very gallery that is its subject.
Constructed with many canvas blocks that read like a narrative, unfolding as the room opens up, Raja's exhibit fills a small space on the lower floor of the gallery. There, the interior of the gallery, an airport and a bathroom are all represented in a surreal maze of interconnected scenes that make viewers feel as though they are exploring these tableaux themselves, even while their feet are firmly planted on the gallery floor.
At the room's entrance, the viewer is presented with a painting that depicts the window view of the parking garage next to the gallery from a long-shot perspective. As the viewer progresses through the exhibition, the canvases become smaller and the view of the garage becomes more intricate and close-up, portraying such details as a window frame or the edge of a door.
Raja attributes this unique ability to blend the subjects of his abstract paintings with their real-life settings to his interest in the interplay of architecture and environment. He accomplishes this blend by portraying spaces that are generic and translate across cultures, then infusing these backdrops with specific images.
Raja counts Chinese narrative as another one of his interests, drawing from it the idea of painting the same location repeatedly within one exhibition while allowing for different people and events to fill the space. The result is that Raja's paintings are characteristic of the Op-Art movement of the 20th century, as they create the impression of movement on the canvas surface by using skewed perspectives and angles to fabricate optical illusions.
He also uses time-based media like movies, video games, magazines and other work that sequentially unfolds as source material. At a talk at the ICA, Raja spoke of Robert Altman's film "Shortcuts," in which Altman weaves together the stories of many characters, and similarly portrays the unfolding of time and events.
According to Raja the fragmented format of the canvases mirrors a fragmentation that occurs in life. As the viewer cycles through Raja's paintings, he or she is forced to fill in the missing pieces in the narrative that Raja has created. Raja feels that this exercise is a microcosm of the identity construction and reconstruction all of us perform each day in response to the overflow of information we receive.
"I wanted to create something that provided the viewer with enough information about the space but to leave an ambiguity that allows the viewer to construct it themselves," said Raja.
While Raja's paintings are all decidedly disconnected, there is just enough continuity to hold the pieces together and create a narrative. The variation that such a format creates almost forces the viewer to sympathize with some distinct aspect of the painting. As in an Altman film, some characters and events will interest you more than others.
Regardless of what type of reaction each person has, Raja wants every viewer to interact with the space, whether it is through a feeling of displacement, such as the limbo between arrival and departure, or through evoking a sense of familiarity, as he does with the locations and objects he chooses to paint.
Like any good postmodernist, he allows the viewer to engage in both sides of contradictory ideas. For example, he juxtaposes public and private areas by inserting a bedroom into the end of an airport terminal.
This piece was also influenced by film. Raja was inspired by the true story of an Iranian who was expelled from Tehran with no passport, and forced to live at Charles de Gaulle airport for many years. This story was the foundation for the Spielberg recent film, "The Terminal."
Raja, a Boston-based painter originally born in Calcutta, recently received the Digitas/ICA Artist Prize. His work has also been displayed at the Allston Skirt Gallery of Boston.
Raja's exhibition runs through May 1st. Admission is free on Thursday nights.
