Saabji

  Acrylic on Aluminium

A transcontinental figure, he finds that he must tap into the life of various societies, fit into various communities, decode various cultures. Globalisation pervasive as it is, cannot homogenise every feature of cultural specificity, and even though the same consumer goods may not be available in Miami and Mumbai, the same attitudes do not necessarily obtain in the two locations. The processes of globalisation unite people within one flow of goods and services, only to separate them by differences of value and power. This continual slipping from one identity to another finds articulation in the mask on a mask effect that Jagadish often summons up, it is a though one dissimulation were slipping off, to reveal yet another or perhaps as though one version of the reality were being peeled away to reveal another. Such masks demonstrate the simultaneous operation of two processes, that of understanding the other, and that of self-making. Jagadish’s masks testify to a private inquiry as well as a social orientation. Also, less noticeable than the celebration, but no less active for that, is an element of social critique. Jagadish seems to ask: What is it like to live in a global society in which one operates from behind a sequence of masks, as from behind the visor of an armour-suit, and can never reveal one’s true face? And then, can there ever be a true face in the masquerade? But these questions are not shouted out with passionate intensity: rather, they are attended by a gentle smile. Rather, it enables him to engage in an art of portraiture that is sympathetic even in its critical moments: Jagadish’s images embody, above all, that need to connect which provokes the artist to form a relationship of dialogue and discovery with his world, without being paralysed by anxieties about a water-tight, travel-proof ethnic or national identity