Chandigarh furniture by Pierre Jeanneret at an art exhibition in London

Just a ten-minute walk from the utilitarian hustle and bustle of the recent Frieze London 2024, we discovered an altogether more heartfelt art event. Rajan Bijlani – who over the past two decades has amassed a collection of about 500 pieces of furniture by Pierre Jeanneret from Chandigarh, the city founded in 1947 by India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and led by Le Corbusier – has curated an exhibition featuring six artists brings together South Asian heritage in his home, the historic London townhouse of Fonthill Pottery.

“Syncretic Voices: Art and Design in the South Asian Diaspora” in London

In collaboration with Michael Jefferson, a former senior specialist in 20th century design at Christie’s, and independent curator Truls Blaasmo, Bijlani exhibits paintings and sculptures for sale in a changing, living domestic space.

The emerald green hand-glazed ceramic tile by ceramic artist Lubna Chowdhary Mark 70 sits nicely against the wall of the downstairs kitchen, framed at first glance by a curtain of pots and pans dangling from the ceiling. Rana Begum’s alien totem pole No. 1261 T-reflector made of fluoro orange and red plastic, sits outside on a basement terrace lined with living walls.

Here things are overlaid with design. The patina of wear on Jeanneret’s 1960 teak dining table is reflected in the abstract shapes found in nearby paintings by Tanya Ling and Soumya Netrabile. A fold in the middle of a butterfly stool is published by Vipeksha Gupta Without Title IV as Charcoal line cutting through pigment. Jefferson says, “When people live with their art, it’s completely different than experiencing it in a white box or a barren gallery.” People come over and stay. Sometimes you have to take a minute to interpret the art, but it feels done. It allows you to think about it.’

There is a danger that works of art outside the protection of a white cube will all too easily be reduced to objects of interior design. Props will be judged based on color, shape and size only. “I’ve noticed more and more that interior designers have a lot of influence on what art goes into a home,” says Bijlani. “But even if some works of art seem aesthetic, you might not want to live with them.” There Is a tension…should art be shown surrounded by white space so you can really focus on it? Personally, I love the conversation that starts when everything comes together into one big thing.”

All the pieces in Bijani’s furniture collection are embroidered with evidence of improvised repair work, extra nails and hammered metal staples.

In the basement, a unique square table from the cafeteria of the Punjab University in Chandigarh circa 1961 bears a proud diamond-shaped piece of aluminum. Its scratched surface shines with the same polymer and pigment sheen as in the nearby painting by Harminder Judge. A Ghost Dance (a composition 2). “That’s the great thing about furniture, it absorbs the life force that it has,” says Jefferson. “There are a lot of people who don’t get inspired by that and say, ‘Clean this up.’ Let’s sand it down!” and that’s a mistake. You can’t get that back; You will erase his history. It may not be to your taste, but Rajan focuses on the early production, with that strict line and robust patina, because it’s appealing. It’s about humanity. It’s a different way of looking at these things.”

All of the works in “Syncretic Voices” were installed a month before the exhibition opened to the public, last week (October 9, 2024). During this time, Bijlani noticed how they change depending on the time of day. Begum’s No. 1260 B reflector is on the first floor, directly in view of Bijlani’s desk: “Depending on the light, it sometimes feels like a UFO has fallen into my living room,” he says.

As a cohort, the artists focus on a meditative approach to creation, but their individual goals are broad. “I don’t know if there is this universal theme of the works from a cultural perspective,” says Bijlani. His own family had to leave Larkana (today’s Sindh in Pakistan) in 1942 to emigrate to the newly founded India. He grew up in London. “Chandigarh was born due to Partition. Nehru’s principles and the idea of ​​this transfer of knowledge from Western architects to younger Indian architects like Charles Correa, Urmila Eulie Chowdhury, BV Doshi etc. was the reason why I wanted to show works by artists from the South Asian diaspora. By setting in places such as the UK and the US, her work contributes to this discussion about movement, migration and attitudes. “We are all connected, no matter where we come from.”