Behold union in separation, like the eye and vision*
- Dhritabrata Bhattacharjya Tato
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
by Dhritabrata Bhattacharjya Tato
Inder Salim’s on-going show titled I Belong to the Missing Side at Gallery ONKAF gives a rare glimpse into his large body of work, hitherto mostly unexhibited. His artworks eerily bears a sense of contempt which suitably qualifies his art to be classified as political. But a deeper look into his works reveals the itinerary of an artist in conjuncture of materiality, temporality and spatiality. His choice of semiotics, materials, visual language, durational and performative aspects weaves an engaging visual narrative.
Inder Salim is a well-known name within and without art circles for his major contributions to performance art – a pioneering role that he played along with Shantanu Lodh, Anil Dayanand and Sunil Kumar. He has been primarily recognized as a performance and conceptual artist across art institutions and the mainstream media for more than the last three decades. The political nature and use of his body in performances remained an issue within the contemporary artscape. This exhibition therefore hints at two distinct challenges: first, accommodating Inder Salim’s larger-than-life body of artworks (primarily performative) within the confines of a gallery, and second, situating his work in the landscape of contemporary art practices in India. The former has been met with the capable curatorial intervention of Neha ‘Zooni’ Tickoo. The latter depends on the reception of this exhibition by the art world, especially in India, which still has an ambiguous relationship with the limits of visual art.
Gallery ONKAF bears the sign of architectural aesthetics from its gate through the exterior half-pace stairs up to the rooftop exhibition space. The gallery’s architectural and ergonomical qualities somehow resonate with Inder Salim’s art. The gallery is divided into indoor and outdoor spaces. Outdoor space has works like I Belong to the Missing Side (2020), On my hands – Tiles, (2020), Brick Series – Sun (2025) that can endure the open air conditions. Inside, the curator has fittingly used the space to accommodate a maximum number of works. However, four works kept in the reception lack visibility. Having said that, the scenography is well-kempt and intelligently used; not to forget a Mirrored Washroom Cabinet (2025) kept in the washroom of the gallery. This work is part of a series titled On My Hands related to the 2002 performance in which Inder Salim chopped off a portion of his left-hand little finger in the honour of Yamuna, and then in 2018 he re-established the symmetry of his body by cutting off the right-hand little finger. In this review, the word body is always italicized due to Inder Salim’s typical use of body in most of his works. In that sense, he in fact belongs to the Artist is present group. His lens-based works mostly feature his bodily presence. Here there are only a few of these works including around seven from On My Hands series. The suspended apple on an invisible string above a stool is an installation of this series.
Left: On my hands
Right: On my hands - mirrored washing cabinet
Those familiar with his performance-based activities may expect a collection of found objects, residues and documentation of his performance, live and lens-based art. On the contrary, this show has around 15 works in oil, pen & ink, and acrylic on canvas – too conventional for a conceptual artist of his sort. One may argue that there are a few artworks that do have visual references to his performances, yet these artworks have been groomed into a collectible group of art that stands alone independently from their performative origins. The difference between his lens-based works being auctioned by himself in Palette Art Gallery in 2008, and the present show is the absence of his performance. Back in 2007 he auctioned his paintings to build a modest home for a cobbler, the auction itself was an excellent piece of performance. The nicely framed photographs were sold through Inder Salim’s performance. Here, in contrast, all the artworks are independently collectible, the artist is absent. For example, the residue and documentation of his Sarmad performance at Sarai CSDS is definitely there, but installed in a collectible piece of art titled as Celebrating Sufi Sarmad (2007) and This Road Leads to Hazrat Sufi Sarmad Shaheed Sahib (2007). The same is the case with a few photo-based-multimedia works, A Beautiful River, (2004), Soi – nettle – bichubuti (2004), Fading Out (2004), Brick Series Me 1 (2025), Brick Series Me 2 (2025), Brick Series Deep (2025) as well as found objects like Half Open Box, 1992-94), Strange Woman (2016), Mythological died because of (2025).
All the exhibits mark two distinguishable periods of his life, as well as that of his art practice. Works dating back to the early 1990s, are conventional oil on canvas which sharply contrasts his works from the 2000s onwards that features a provocative impulsively performative Inder Salim. However, the Baat – Conversation (relief, 1992-94), Half Open Box (found object, 1992-94), Spillage (relief, 1992-1994) do hint at Inder Salim’s penchant towards multimedia, found objects, art brut and conceptual art from the very beginning of his career. When Inder Salim was compelled to leave Kashmir during a political exodus, he lost most of his early conventional paintings except a handful, some of which are part of this show, revealing Inder Salim as a painter, for the first time.
Guernica (1990) is an earliest artwork of Inder Salim. This work is a tangible reference to his early fascination with surrealists, and his two sets of four self-portraits in the line of the Marilyn Monroe Portfolio created in 1992 bears a much stronger imprint of surrealist and similar art movements. His oil paintings Dead Crow (), Self Portrait I Want to Talk (1992), At the Heart of Things (1994), Dejhur – Chinnamastika Devi (1995), Landscape Kasheer (1997) and emblematic Chinar Trees (1994) bear Munch-like expressionist traits (strictly in terms of techniques) - distorting reality, employing bold, jagged brushwork to register ‘raw, subjective emotions and inner psychological states over realistic representation’.
I Belong to the Missing Side is a statement that actually resonates in all his works, whatever may be the medium, although this tiny segment of his large repertoire of works is unsatisfactory to those who have witnessed Inder Salim for the last three decades. A huge gain is his landscape paintings that beautifully capture the white soothing opaque lights of Kashmir. But Inder Salim alternates between the beauty and the critique, as a result there are a lot more hidden in those paintings than simple landscape, at times legible. His keen interest in sciences and letters, make him alternate between poetry and numbers, between the historic and the futuristic, between the manifested and the dormant. We may resume his outlook and art practice in the words of one of his favourite poets Ghalib:
Hai ghaib-e-ghaib, jis ko samajh te hai hum shahud, Hai khwab mein hunuz, jo jage hai khwab mein.
(The Secret is still the secret, but we say it’s manifest. Its in a dream we wake, ‘We are awake’ we opine)**
* RUBAI 14, HAZRAT SARMAD ** DIWAN E GHALIB, VERSE 98, I, 10, TRANSLATION BY DR SARVAT RAHMAN
The show is on view at Gallery ONKAF till 10th March 2026 (All images are courtesy of Inder Salim, Tato and Gallery ONKAF.)
Dhritabrata Bhattacharjya Tato is a writer curator and cultural historian. He studied French Literature from Calcutta University, Documentation & Information Science from Paris Université X Nanterre and Cultural Studies from Université de Paris - Sorbonne Nouvelle, France as a UNESCO Profession Culture Fellow. He has also been a Fellow of Bibliothèque National de France. He has several books to his credit on history, art and spirituality. He internationally curates visual and performance art shows.
A wonderful review of an equally brilliant show.