Lot 36: Atul Bhalla (B. 1964)

Atul Bhalla (B. 1964)
MCD TAPS
signed in Hindi and dated '07' (lower right)
digital print on archival paper
16 x 12 in. (40.6 x 30.5 cm.) each
Executed in 2007; number one from an edition of three plus one artist proof
Set of twenty five photographs (25)

An edition of this work has been exhibited at the following:
London, Aicon Gallery, Signs Taken for Wonders: Recent Art from India and Pakistan, December 2008 - January 2009
London, Aicon Gallery, within/without, May 2008
Noida, Anant Art Centre, Atul Bhalla, March 2007

An edition of this work has been published in the following:
D. Nath, 'Water Stories: Of discarded objects, caustic sustenance and communal drinking taps', ...within/without..., exhibition catalogue, London, 2008, (illustrated, unpaginated)
F. Rahim Ismail, 'Passage from India', Art Quarterly, London, 2008, p. 54 (illustrated)
Atul Bhalla, exhibition catalogue, Anant Art Centre, Noida, 2007, pp. 50-53 (illustrated)

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Atul Bhalla's work engages with the shared environmental and ethical concerns of a new generation. The visual journeys through the streets of Delhi, as seen in his grid-formed photographic series MCD Taps (part of the public water taps system), investigate the treatment of this life-giving source in the challenging environment of urban India, and its symbol as a source for renewal. The city of Delhi is built on the banks of the Yamuna river, whose waters suffer careless pollution from industrial waste as a result of development. These taps serve as provisions of water to the community throughout the city, maintained by local organisations but connected to sources supplied by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi; a private and public partnership that provides safe drinking water. Bhalla's concern on issues of pollution and sustainability has developed through his exploration of the physical, historical and political associations of water.