Is the portrayal of a woman in a position of power inherently feminist? This question struck me when I visited the Siddhartha Art Gallery's latest exhibition featuring Kalighat paintings. I found myself amused and conflicted by one piece, ‘Babu and Bibi II,’ in which a bourgeois woman holds a leash attached to a dog with a man's head. In today's art world, feminism has become a buzzword—from discussions in my homeland of Cyprus to my university classrooms in the US and now here in Kathmandu.
Yet, beyond the surface-level rhetoric of ‘feminism’ and ‘equality’, deeper conversations often reveal these concepts' ambiguity and diverse interpretations. Feminism means something different to everyone, even within the same progressive circles. Siddhartha Art Gallery’s exhibition places three story-telling art forms in conversation with one another: Patachitra, Bilampau, and Kalighat paintings.
Patachitra is the original art form from which folk artists deviated to invent the Bilampau and Kalighat styles. This is one of the most unique aspects of the exhibition; by placing all three styles alongside one another, visitors can see the evolution of folk art as it travelled across South Asia. Bilampau paintings result from the Patachitra tradition of crossing from India into Nepal, and Kalighat is the product of the migration of Patachitra artists to Kolkata.
All three art styles share certain narrative and symbolic attributes. When stepping into the gallery, the Kalighat p.