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NS HARSHA/CHEN CHIEH-JEN
Rajesh Punj
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| VICTORIA MIRO/INIVA - LONDON NS Harsha is an accomplished artist dedicated to questions of global politics as well as the fate of the common man; Harsha’s works attempt to scrutinize the rich tapestry of the Indian sub-continent with deliberate intelligence and brilliant wit. At Victoria Miro, Harsha has unveiled a series of new paintings that recall his affection for miniature, and his scrutinizing of global and social interests that interweave India’s culture like a collision of traffic in central Mumbai. In musth (2009) is a wondrous work that reflects Harsha’s sensitive take on India’s cultural heritage while Untitled (2009) depicts a miniature scene in which figures appear to organize a field of colored thread that is collectively reordered, redesigned for something much better. | | |  | | NS HARSHA, Absurd blossoms, 2009. Acrylic on linen, 183 x 366 cm. Courtesy Victoria Miro, London. © the Artist. | | | | | Plotted at two sites in East London, Nations (2008) at Iniva is comprised of 192relic sewing machines that have, for lack of space and reinvention, been laid out on a set of temporary platforms. The machines and their abundance of tangled thread and calico-colored flags are pinned beneath the protruding needles of each machine as a representation of the numerous countries of the UN. The installation and its evocative response to Asian sweat shops is echoed by Taiwanese artist Chen Chieh-jen, whose work Factory (2003) successfully evokes the tragic sense of hundreds of low-paid workers rooted to their machines with fabric and thread. Chieh-jen’s work is an engrossing film in which the artist has invited the original workers back to the derelict Lien Fu factory, which has been closed for several years now. Without work, these elderly ladies, returning to their dilapidated machines, appear inextricably linked to the fate of the Taoyuan County factory. | | |  | | CHEN CHIEH-JEN, Factory, 2003. Still from film. Courtesy the artist. | | | | | | | | | Flash Art 270 JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2010 | |
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