Edifice Complex: Sameer Kulavoor

Sameer Kulavoor’s practice encompasses his unique observations of spaces, structures and geographies. These nuanced compositions, featuring sequential drawings and reverse painted transparent sheets, underscore his affinity towards cities and their multi-layered identities. In this exhibition, architecture is once again the main protagonist. The city in question is an unnamed, ubiquitous entity. A place where design and architecture are born out of responsiveness and resourcefulness rather than a result of extensive detailed pre-planning. Here, sophisticated design principles are thrown to the wind and built structures are mutating beings, growing and adapting to the needs and aspirations of the lives lived within.

As described by architect Rahul Mehrotra, the author of the catalogue essay for Edifice Complex, “[Sameer Kulavoor] implicitly challenges the idea of the world-class city and foregrounds the built form of the city that results from this attitude of a complete detachment from its ambient environment as well as the place and community which it is meant to serve.”

Click here to view the exhibition catalogue

 The title ‘Edifice Complex’ is borrowed from a phrase coined by Behn Cervantes, a Filipino activist writing in the time of the autocrat Ferdinand Marcos. It references the phenomenon where individuals, organisations, or governments become obsessed with building grandiose structures to give an impression of power, status or progress, often at the expense of more pressing needs. Kulavoor's works explore this theme, particularly in the context of post-independence aspirations taking the shape of structures built in "tier-one" and "tier-two" towns across India. In these new post-modern structures, he found a distinct visual language that reminded him of the works of the Milan based group, Memphis Milano - a rambunctious counter to the seriousness of Bauhaus and Modernism. Incidentally, Ettore Sottsass, the founding member of the group was, in fact, inspired by his visits to Tiruvannamalai, India in the sixties and seventies- before he founded Memphis Milano in the nineteen eighties.

Having closely witnessed the rapid transformation of urban surroundings and culture in India in the 90s (results of economic liberalisation and the internet boom), Kulavoor's innate approach is to constantly note and understand the impact that time, culture, politics and socio-economic conditions have on our visible and invisible surroundings. His works often address how and why cities look and work the way they do by filtering, dissecting, documenting and defamiliarizing commonly seen subjects and events – often oscillating between instinctive and conceptual methods of making. Through the early 2000s, Kulavoor became widely known for his design and illustration work and set up one of the earliest specialised studios in India - Bombay Duck Designs. Over the next decade, Kulavoor moved on to focus on his solo art practice that has taken the form of drawings, paintings, videos, sculptures, murals, books, zines and art-prints.