Art gallery curator, artist booked over objectionable painting

Mumbai police booked artist T Venkanna and Gallery Maskara's director for displaying an allegedly objectionable painting and allowing minors entry.

MUMBAI: The Colaba police have booked artist T Venkanna, whose work is on display at Gallery Maskara, and the curatorial director of the gallery, Abhay Maskara, for displaying a purportedly objectionable painting of gods and goddess and not prohibiting entry of minors into the gallery.

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The case was registered based on a complaint by lawyer Vishal Nakhawa, said police.

Nakhawa said in the complaint that when he questioned the gallery staff about the painting titled ‘Union for Peace’ by Venkanna, they locked themselves in separate rooms and avoided his questions. He then approached the police with a formal complaint, he said.

Based on the complaint, Venkanna and Maskara were booked under sections 294 (sale of obscene books, etc), 295 (sale etc of obscene objects to child) and 299 (acts intended to outrage religious feelings) of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita, said police.

When HT reached out to Abhay Maskara, he clarified by sharing the artist’s statement, which said the work in question had been misunderstood as targeting religion, which was absolutely not the case.

“In this image, a woman stands as a protagonist against sexual violence. The man below her, already dead, represents a criminal punished for his actions. This is not a religious allegory, but rather a symbolic vision of a woman taking matters into her own hands in a patriarchal society, where sexual crimes against women are too often ignored or go unpunished,” Venkanna said in the statement.