The lineage of art in Bengal is a testament to its enduring creativity and cultural vitality. From ancient sculptures and terracotta temples to modernist paintings and contemporary installations, Bengal’s art has evolved through centuries of cultural exchange and historical transformation. Its significance in the contemporary art world is not only a reflection of its past glories but also its ongoing contributions to global artistic discourse. TRI—a multidisciplinary art and culture space established in 2024—is a recent contribution to the Bengal art scene. Standing tall on Ballygunge Road, TRI bridges the gap between the nostalgic and emergent, the traditional and the novel, through exhibitions and events that emphasise and encourage empathy, collaboration and connectivity.

The director of TRI, Madeleine St. John, joins STIR for a conversation, speaking about how it stands apart from other arts institutions in Kolkata. “The sincerity toward aesthetics that makes Kolkata’s art scene so distinct is the very sentiment that seeded TRI as a concept before it became the art and culture centre that now serves the city’s residents and visitors. Siblings and art enthusiasts Varun and Nitasha Thapar spent an impressionable portion of their childhood in Kolkata. Now, as adults residing in Delhi and Mumbai, [they] retain affection for Kolkata and an appreciation for its creative foundations,” she said. “TRI was established to give back to the city what Kolkata gave to them as children: exposure to several creative disciplines and access to an affirmative community within which they could explore their sensory curiosities.”

Rather than drawing from the Thapar collection, TRI as an institution draws on the ethos and enthusiasm for art that informs these collections to present wide-ranging and audience-informed events and exhibitions. Their art collection is one of many ways in which the Thapar family has cultivated their affinity for aesthetics. For instance, Varun is a classically trained pianist, while Nitasha spent several years of her career as the founder and creative executive of a graphic design firm. This feeds into TRI Art and Culture, which invites visitors to “tri [try]” and discover art. Talking about how TRI’s exhibition calendar is programmed, St. John explains, “With connection as a central element of our institutional ethos, TRI’s cultural calendar is informed by curatorial collaboration with independent, institutional and commercial partners from West Bengal and beyond. Visiting curators work closely with TRI’s curatorial team to shape exhibitions, which serve local audiences by offering aesthetic exposure, tending to an appreciation for the traditional and satisfying a craving for the experimental.”

Their curatorial approach informs individual exhibitions as much as it shapes a complete cultural calendar, towards determining which combination of events and exhibitions may best serve viewers over a year. This is manifested in the ongoing exhibitions What The Camera Didn’t See and Bhuri Bai - My Life As An Artist by the Museum of Art & Photography (MAP), Bengaluru, and the MAP Academy respectively, at TRI. What author Sara Suleri, born in Pakistan, terms “dislocated fury” in her book The Rhetoric of English India—the facial expression seen in colonial-era portraits captured by British photographers—has been recurrently contested by postcolonial theorists. To reconfigure this idea of “dislocated fury,” the exhibition What The Camera Didn’t See by Alexander Gorlizki/ Pink City Studio bridges photography and painting in an effort to add a tinge of caustic humour, in otherwise static compositions. For instance, in the photograph titled Look at Me, the nobleman, painted in green hues, overlooks the motley of anthropomorphic figures. The satirical tones of the photograph are underlined in this juxtaposition. “Most of the pieces in this exhibition are based on copies from MAP’s photography collection, while some are directly painted on vintage photographs,” mentions the press release. The quirky visual imagery embedded with fine details akin to those of miniature paintings is a result of the deft artistry practised by the painters from the Pink City Studio in Jaipur, mentored by miniature painter Riyaz Uddin.

In its curation and cultural programmes, TRI has unexpected encounters between artists, artisans, institutions, writers, performers, and thought leaders to forge new aesthetic and intellectual pathways – Madeleine St. John, Director, TRI Art and Culture

The exhibition Bhuri Bai - My Life As An Artist is a culmination of research by the MAP Academy, along with paintings created by Indian artist Bhuri Bai, the first woman from the Bhil community to paint on paper and canvas. Her journey as an illustrious tribal artist is interesting enough to capture the attention of the viewer: from being a member of the Adivasi community to being a daily wage worker in Bhopal, the capital city of Madhya Pradesh, to becoming an accomplished global artist. The bright colours and form, highlighted through layers of thick paint—the impasto style of brushstrokes—combined with fine lines, demonstrate the ritual painting styles seen in the Pithora murals made by the Bhil community.

“In its curation and cultural programmes, TRI has unexpected encounters between artists, artisans, institutions, writers, performers and thought leaders to forge new aesthetic and intellectual pathways,” says St. John. Interestingly, this is personified by the name of the building and its architecture. TRI is inspired by the heritage building’s unique triangular shape—an architectural form that inspires the triangulation of ideas as much as it invites visitors to “try” these concepts through novel experiences. The space was first built in 1952 as a private residence and was used as a home until about a decade ago. “Today, in order to shape a kunsthalle for the Kolkata audience, the heritage facade was maintained while its interiors were reimagined for exhibitions and events of various disciplines and formats,” she adds.

Speaking about upcoming exhibitions at TRI, St. John says, “The balance of 2024 looks forward to bringing two group shows to TRI in addition to several events and activations spanning various programme formats and creative disciplines — visual arts, media arts, culinary arts, literary arts, research practice and social practice.”