Ranbir Kaleka’s large, mural-sized painting, Boy Without Reflection, described a dystopic universe that had mutilated dogs and fishes caught in a dreadful frenzy of gross mutation: even as the denizens of the animal world, caught in a technicolour miasma of colour, generated multiple reflections in the contaminated water, we could see that the squat, defeated figure of the boy could not summon up even a single reflection. Incidentally, many of Nalini Malani’s works in the show also chose to use dogs as metaphors to invoke a ghastly netherworld, fuelled as it was with pathological drives and repressed desires. Both Kaleka and Malani successfully dwelled, much like Anita Dube, on the perverse spectacularity of violence.

Abhay Sardesai, editor of Art India magazine