Search

May 1, 2017 – May 31, 2017

With ‘Walter & Friends’, we invite you to experience the apparently divergent narratives of six celebrated artists, who studied together at the M. S. University, in the seventies. This show carries the special significance not only of announcing our opening, but also of building an undeniable parallel to our story. A story of sentiment. Of romanticism; discovery, both in introspect and retrospect; of struggles that culminate in triumph, and at times in failure; of collaborative evolution in creative pursuit; of courage and abandon; of the contradiction in simultaneous anarchy and symmetry; of growth – an ombudsman at times; serendipity; but most importantly perhaps, of prevailing friendship.

Arbitrary as they might seem, these are themes very relevant to the show, its comprising artists, even the building’s overarching narrative, as well as the collaborative motivations of those involved in its making; specifically, Ahmedabad based architect Aniket Bhagwat, in a unique, and largely unprecedented, creative collaboration with artist, Walter D’Souza of ‘Walter and Friends’, and of course, Atul Dalmia, who was closely involved through the process. I daresay, it is hardly contrived to describe the two aforementioned partnerships, those of ‘Walter & Friends’ and the team at Ark, in the same vein: brought together by chance events, what began in unlikely associations, stand today as rich and natural friendships.

In a conversation about the making of Ark, Aniket said, “there cannot be architecture unless there is the idea of poetry in it, and there cannot be architecture unless there is the idea of soul in it.”

In ‘Walter & Friends’, we invite you to find poetry that is imbibed with the soul of these individuals and so many more.