Contemporary corridors

The Lodhi Hotel in Delhi doubles up as a sprawling art gallery where every month new exhibitions are hosted

The Lodhi in New Delhi is one of those hotels that are worth visiting more than once for their art collection. Chennai's Apparao Galleries uses the hotel walls as a fluid, cubed space for its exhibitions, of both well- known Progressives such as S H Raza and M F Husain, as well as and newer artists. These exhibitions change every month and at any given time, there are two or three ongoing exhibitions at The Lodhi. The artists whose works are on display are from all over India, allowing one to see and buy a microcosm of unusual and fresh art, including installations.

This week, one can walk into the hotel to see individualistic and atypical exhibitions of wearable art, installations based around light and jewellery design, coins on canvas, old record and CD covers with photographs, photographs transferred onto glass, pichhvais, postcards, wool installations and chess sets.

The hotel's art collection can be viewed even before you enter the hotel. Behind the body scanner are two fairytale yellow works by Madhukar Maithani. As I step into the lobby, I walk past wool installations by Smriti Dixit, which are a part of the Art on the Body exhibition that features wearable art. The show's exhibits range from jewellery by artists such as Nandesha Shanthiprakash, Ikroop Dhillon, Sylvo Schroeder and Abhishek Basak's metal jewellery to Brigitta Volz's gold on glass art, Masooma Syed's paper installations and Priya Sundervalli's ceramic jewellery. Artist Sumedh Rajendran says about the show. "It is very differently curated and the artists use different materials. The show borders between art and design."

Near the reception desk is an exhibition of pichhvais on canvas by Rahul G, called Along the Mountain Trail. These are intricate miniature paintings of flora and fauna done on canvas, even if they don't actually have any visible images of Shri Balaji or Krishna.

As I walk towards the bar, I pass an exhibition called Interventions, by film maker and artist Madhavan Palanisamy. The series features photographs of Chennai, printed on old record and CD covers. Just outside the bar, I spot a black-and-white Raza from the hotel's collection. Inside are Lucknow-based Mainaz Bano's exhibitions about sikkas or coins. Some of these images of gold Mauryan- and Mughal-period calligraphy and coins are framed, while others are printed on white canvas to look like very large coins.

As I go down the stairs towards the tea lounge, there is a photographic exhibition called Transitions and Trajectories by Bhupendra Karia, which has been installed as part of the Delhi Photo Festival. Karia's luminous photographs have recently become a rage and have also invited the attention of The Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York, which has also acquired some of his works. This is a great opportunity to catch a glimpse of them.

The traditional black-and-white images of Chennai contrast sharply with the images of painter-photographer George K, whose works are displayed in and around the tea lounge. His images Madras Jail building, which has since been demolished, are transferred onto glass transparencies and placed in binders in series of three. The glass allows them to blend together so that one sees the bottom two through the top one, as if through water.

As I make my way towards the swimming pool area, there's a stunning exhibition of George K's chess sets, which are displayed throughout the lower floor. These chess sets are crafted from various materials, including logs of wood, paper, scientific equipment and crystal.

The corridor that leads to the pool is also where a lot of traditional installations are displayed. This includes the Dance of Expression collages by Ketna Patel and a series by Srinavas Reddy called Social Commentary. Patel's Dance of Expression is a collage of kitsch plastic images, called Ancient Asia Photo Collages, while Reddy has displayed old Indian postcards. Next to these are paintings by Ganga Singh that look like kilim carpets in their intricacy and colours.

The art collection continues into the rooms as well as in other corridors. The second floor corridor, for example, has a series by Alexis Kersey, while the sixth floor has sculptures of Mahatma Gandhi by George K. But it's the corridor on the seventh floor that has my favourite black-and-white luminous images of Husain, Indira Gandhi and Shammi Kapoor by O P Sharma. These were exhibited at the India Art Fair last year, and now again as part of Delhi Photo Festival.

Since the hotel is one of the partners of the India Art Fair in New Delhi this January, new exhibitions by Gunjan Gupta, Gautam Bhatia and Alex Davis are in the offing.
Contact Apparao Galleries at 9643826244 for a walk through the exhibitions at The Lodhi