POPULAR REALITY
Reality as it is! Reality as it is popularly perceived? It is not about knowing the ultimate truth but the certainty that it is seen or known by an individual. Reality would therefore, be defined as a state of things as they exist, inclusive of everything ‘that is.’ Whether they can be comprehended or not?
Artists' see reality not as it is popularly perceived in its totality, but as an amalgam of things and processes, often contradictory or even unrelated. As a curator, I have merely assembled together their perceptions of these facets of Reality and the Popular.
All the artists participating in the project met together to share ideas on reality and its perception, both creative and popular. An interesting question that engaged the gathering was ‘ do we create our reality or do we depict our perception of the popular? Reality exists because we have created it or does reality exist because it is believed to exist! We see things that are around us, which may not be real for someone else. Whereas the Popular may or may not be real.
Is Popular Real? Or is real Popular?
The curatorial brief that emerged from this exchange thus developed into an interactive journey with the artist, an attempt to share an individual’s perception of popular reality and to see it as a dialogue with the popular perception of universal reality. We are always trying to differentiate between the real and the unreal. ‘Reality’ is an illusion that exists in an individual’s mind through different levels of identity – social, cultural, political or spiritual.
The POPULAR engages stridently with issues. The ‘popular’, does not necessarily mean that it is for real or that it is the ‘ultimate’. It is a concept that encompasses ‘realities’ that are kitsch, cliché, in vogue, prevalent or admired.
It becomes a ‘cliché’, when it is an everyday sight, however that does not reduce its importance or reality. Popular is not only the ‘physicality’ of the subject matter but also the inner gist.
A lot of us define our realities through ‘observing and internalising’ information from Kitsch as manifest in cinema, tabloids, billboards, Internet and breaking news of TV channels.
Representations of popular imagery and screaming advertisements on billboards, desperately trying to breathe in over crowded spaces are mirroring our true identities.
Reality is subjective; it does not have to be concurrent. It could be a popular belief trickling down generations and eventually getting accepted as popular reality. While reality can be observed directly through the irony of things as they are.
These, among others, are thoughts of the artists whose works are showcased in this jamboree of popular reality.
