ART-REVIEW:Amar Kanwar-Such A Morning…The Path To Enlightenment

Amar Kanwar’s video entitled “Such A Morning”, that is on show at Marian Goodman Gallery in Paris is exactly the same that was shown during documenta 14 at the Athens School of Fine Arts’ (ASFA) exhibition Hall “Nikos Kessanlis” in Athens. But, if you watch the whole video (87’) in the specially designed space, at the gallery’s lower level, it is a completely different artwork. This is logical, because in documenta is on presentation a wide number and variety and of videos is presented, so an artwork can be overlooked, the same happened to “The Tempest Society” by Bouchra Khalili… The only difference with Khallili’s work, that I saw it at Jeu de Paumme in Paris last June, is, that even fragmentary, I was remember it unlike Kanwar’s work, while the images were referring to something known and familiar, I really did not remember it at all. ‘’Such A Morning’’ is a low-profile video with delicate balance, and highly emotional, the viewer needs absolute peace and silence, to watch it. The artist deals with the most classic theme of Hindu philosophy in a manner that is so contemporary that if the 87 minutes were a sketch, it would be one stroke of the pen- crescendo! It’s not an easy video, in the sense that you go through a glance and get the picture of the project. In fact, it is a film as the artist calls it, that negotiates with a series of decisions and feelings that are wrestling and equilibrating in the soul and mind of a University Professor, who is faced with the gradual blindness, which ultimately leads him to enlightenment… It is an excellent work of high quality, where, through a meditative process, the artist introduces the viewer into a personal journey that can be everyone’s path. Just as the occasion requires, Amar Kanwar does not use visual, aural or emotional games to entice us with complacency and narcissism in a really sensitive issue. On the contrary, through simple-familiar and at the same time profoundly poetic images, through the human internal struggle, stoicism, endurance and the initiation from spiritual blindness in enlightenment anoints the attending spectator, participant, conniver, and eventually a companion to a common human path. Sensational! Highly recemented for everyone that will be in Paris till 7/3/19. The installation at the upper level of the gallery complements the film, it’s truly a nice epilogue.-Efi Michalarou

Info: Marian Goodman Gallery, 79 rue du Temple, Paris, Duration: 12/1-7/3/19, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-19:00, www.mariangoodman.com