Small pleasures

I’m not entirely sure why but I’ve fallen in love with this little thing.

I cannot even begin to tell you how darn cute this sculpture/ installation looks. Or how funny it must have looked when I got down on my haunches to take this picture. If someone had taken a picture of me, then we could have had a line that Colonel Hathi from Jungle Book would have been proud of. The bucket, by the way, was brought in by the artist. Apparently, the gallery had offered to get a bucket but Baliga sternly forbade them and brought his own bucket down from wherever it is that he lives. I’m so glad he did. Not that I would have minded a shiny, red bucket but it’s rather cool how the grooved circle pattern on the bucket reflects the rows of kids being photographed. The class dangling from the wall is made of carved wood and the teacher, seated in the centre of the bottom row, is intentionally smaller than her students who tower over her. I love the different woody colours that he’s got going in the bit with the class and the shadows that piece casts is fantastic. The airborne and hovering class also reminded me of the old mythological serials in which gods would appear in an obviously painted sky and have clouds under their feet to communicate their levitating powers (a sure sign of divinity). Except of course when you look closely at Baliga’s sculpture, it’s quite obviously school kids. They’re all pretty cute but no one can hold a candle to Mr. Photographer. If you go round the front, he’s holding a camera. Utterly and completely adorable. I was so tempted to just pocket him and tiptoe out (the gallery was empty as usual) but I restrained my criminal urges. This is particularly admirable because while surfing around aimlessly, I did find at least two things that would have matched his size perfectly and sort of fitted the mood of Baliga’s tongue-in-cheek show

by Anonandon