Osian's Auction Catalogue Select Masterpieces of Indian Modern and Contemporary Art | June 2009

47 17 Atul Dodiya (b.1959) As Though He Listened Oil on canvas, 1987 Signed in English ‘Atul’ on verso 60.1 x 63.9 in (152.2 x 162.4 cm) Inscribed in English ‘ATUL B DODIYA, ‘AS THOUGH HE LISTENED, 1987, 153 cm x 163 cm’ on verso INR 8,000,000 – 10,000,000 USD 166,670 – 208,330 Refer to Lot 77 in Exhibition-Auction ‘The Intuitive- Logic II’, Cu. Neville Tuli, HEART, 1997, titled ‘Man in the Gallery’ (1985) which is a set of 3 paper works, depicting a man with a collar band viewing an artwork (A Bust) placed on a pedestal. The above work Lot 17 is in continuum, the man with a collar band is in conversation with an artist (perhaps). The wall foregrounds the two men in conversation and an artobject placed on a pedestal for viewing. Humour in the entire episode is noteworthy – the expression on the face of the Bust (artwork), who coincidentally resembles the man wearing a collar band, and the tilted plant. The Gallery opens to the road / the outside world. Fun in everyday things, the ordinariness of the visual is where Atul’s humour works best. “Dodiya’s world is self-confident. He presents his characters without irony, nostalgia or rage. He is not defensive about their social status, which is that of the comfortable middle class. There is no apology in these works or anything. We see the exactness with which a figure is stationed at a certain point, the meticulousness of one tone of colour against another, the almost finicky measuring of distances between objects. All these function as reverberating foci against each other.” – Gieve Patel, rpt. in ‘Atul Dodiya’, Gallery Chemould, ExC, 1989.