mid-day walks through the new space at Jehangir Art Gallery as it readies for early May opening
The new gallery, exhibition room No 4, replaces Cafe Samovar. Pic/Bipin Kokate
In March 2015, the city mourned the closing down of Cafe Samovar - the famed Kala Ghoda eatery, where the city's intellectual and artistic circles as well as students and visitors gathered. Now, after a two-year wait, this veranda space, which overlooks the gardens of the CSMVS and is housed in the ground floor of Jehangir Art Gallery, is ready to open its doors again, albeit in a different avatar.
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Samovar proprietor Usha Khanna waves loyal patrons goodbye on its last day at Jehangir Art Gallery
First week of May, the elongated 90-feet-long room will open as exhibition Room No. 4, adding to the existing five galleries and auditorium, that constitute Kala Ghoda's iconic gallery. No. 4's addition, suitable for display of flatworks as well as sculptures and installations, is hoped will relieve the existent seven-year waiting period that artists hoping to exhibit endure.
Adi Jehangir and Karthiayani G Menon
Samovar was one of six spaces within the gallery to be leased out. In 1973, the six licensees, who had formerly signed lease-and-license agreements, were regularised as sub-tenants. A suit of eviction was filed in 1979; while most establishments moved to other parts of the city, Cafe Samovar continued to function out of Jehangir Art Gallery up to 2015, after a five-year extension in 2010.
New fixes
When Adi Jehangir, chairperson of the gallery's managing committee, and Karthiayani G Menon, gallery secretary, take us on a walk-through, it brings back a whiff of the old cafe space. However, gone is the low ceiling and thatched wall that separated the erstwhile cafe from the museum grounds.
The refurbishment has been undertaken by architect Jamshed Sethna. "As a gallery space, it was necessary that it was air-conditioned and that required us to seal up the previously thatch-styled wall. We have used waterproof security glass for one wall, which allows natural light to pour into the gallery," he says.
The use of natural lighting is further continued on the ceiling, in the form of a skylight strip in an attempt to address the greatest challenge here - the need for expanse. "We wanted to prevent the gallery from feeling like a dungeon, which is why, despite the need for more display space, we decided to leave one wall glass-paneled," says Jehangir. Menon adds that an arboreal screen will be eventually planted along the length of the wall on the grounds of the CSMVS.
While the mock-patio gallery is long, its width is but 12 feet - a distance just enough to view enough large canvases.
Cafe Samovar was also remembered for its low ceiling, but to allow for more space and with no way to increase the height, the floor has been dug deeper, giving the gallery a mildly cavernous feel.
This is also the first time that the gallery has used LeD lighting instead of incandescent lighting. "While the artists who display at Jehangir seem to largely prefer incandescent lighting, it's not power-saving," says Sethna.
Need of the hour
Jehangir hopes this addition brings down the waiting period from seven to three years. "We hope to eventually bring it down to two years. The gallery was instituted to help upcoming artists and we hope to stay true to that cause.
Unlike many commercial galleries, Jehangir is a non-profit, and we do not make any cuts from sales," he says.
In recent years, the gallery has seen an increasing number of applicants. This year's 1,700 applicants will be slotted in 2024, while 2023 is already full with 2,000 applicants.
The cost for showing here will be around Rs 4,000 per day. Currently, it has been planned that applicants in the 2018 list will be allotted this new space.
Sapna Kar, an events manager who has previously looked into the gallery's diamond jubilee celebration, has been roped in. The inauguration is being helmed by businessman Dilip De, trustee of Jehangir Art Gallery. "The space has been rethought to keep it eco-friendly and marry the old gallery with the gardens. Both the gallery and the museum are monumental and historic," he says, adding that the inaugural exhibition, which shall be hosted for a fortnight, will have works by artists who were and are involved with the growth of the gallery. De indicated that many of these works might be by the Indian modernists, several of whom had their exhibitions at the gallery.
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