The Upcoming
  • Culture
    • Art
    • Cinema & Tv
      • Movie reviews
      • Film festivals
      • Shows
    • Food & Drinks
      • News & Features
      • Restaurant & bar reviews
      • Interviews & Recipes
    • Literature
    • Music
      • Live music
    • Theatre
  • Fashion & Lifestyle
    • Accessories
    • Beauty
    • News & Features
    • Shopping & Trends
    • Tips & How-tos
    • Fashion weeks
  • What’s On
    • Art exhibitions
    • Theatre shows
  • Tickets
  • Join us
    • Editorial unit
    • Our writers
    • Join the team
    • Join the mailing list
    • Support us
    • Contact us
  • Interviews
  • Competitions
  • Special events
    • Film festivals
      • Berlin
      • Tribeca
      • Sundance London
      • Cannes
      • Locarno
      • Venice
      • London
      • Toronto
    • Fashion weeks
      • London Fashion Week
      • New York Fashion Week
      • Milan Fashion Week
      • Paris Fashion Week
      • Haute Couture
      • London Fashion Week Men’s
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

  • YouTube

  • RSS

CultureArt

Bhupen Khakhar: You Can’t Please All at Tate Modern

Bhupen Khakhar: You Can’t Please All at Tate Modern | Exhibition review
1 June 2016
Anna Souter
Avatar
Anna Souter
1 June 2016

Exhibition and art

Anna Souter

Bhupen Khakhar: You Can't Please All at Tate Modern

★★★★★

Dates

1st June 2016 - 6th November 2016

Entry

£12

Links & directions

WebsiteMap

The title of the new show opening at Tate Modern, You Can’t Please All, seems distinctly apt: reviews so far have been mixed to say the least, with The Guardian’s one star posed in contrast to The Telegraph’s four. It’s clear that Bhupen Khakhar’s art garners polemical responses and in some ways that’s part of its charm. However, whether it merits a retrospective on the international platform offered by the Tate is less clear.

There are some good works on display, but they could be afforded some more curatorial context in order to help the Tate’s predominantly western audience grasp their full meaning. The scenes presented in the first room of the exhibition are particularly enigmatic, but they are also some of Khakhar’s most powerful works on show. The flattened pictorial plane makes the action appear as if it is taking place at a slight remove from the viewer. The bright jewel tones of paint are reminiscent of traditional Indian miniaturist paintings, but the subject matter is taken from Khakhar’s own life or borrowed from everyday imagery, such as a firecracker wrapper.  

Khakar’s work typically mixes tropes from East and West and from high and low art, creating a unique hybrid style of painting. For example, in the foliage depicted in Man Leaving (Going Abroad) (1970) there is clear evidence of Henri Rousseau’s influence, while paintings such as You Can’t Please All (1981) recall the narrative storytelling found in Sienese Renaissance paintings. This Western influence is combined with distinctly Indian imagery, taken from mythology, religion and everyday life.  

One room looks specifically at Khakhar’s representations of homosexuality, a theme which runs as an undercurrent through all his work. Men are locked in tender but highly erotic embraces, often placed in the foreground, which acts as a sort of visual limbo between the viewer and the life portrayed in the background of the painting. To paint explicit homoerotic scenes in India in the 1980s was highly controversial, and several of the works are imbued with a telling nervous energy.

Striking and provocative as several of Bhupen Khakhar’s paintings undoubtedly are, nevertheless there’s a feeling running through the show that they might not quite be interesting enough to warrant an entire retrospective at Tate Modern, whose prestige is coveted by many highly deserving artists yet to be granted the privilege.  

★★★★★

Anna Souter
Photos: Nick Bennett

Bhupen Khakhar: You Can’t Please All is at Tate Modern from 1st June until 6th November 2016, for further information visit here.

Related Itemsreview

More in Art

No Holds Barred: The Life and Art of Matthew Lanyon

James White
Read More

Shai Baitel announced as inaugural artistic director of Modern Art Museum Shanghai

The editorial unit
Read More

The National Gallery online: Lockdown’s top 20 most viewed paintings

The editorial unit
Read More

Art 2021: London’s best virtual exhibitions from home

Catherine Sedgwick
Read More

Ten artistic depictions of the Christmas story through the ages

James White
Read More

Five gifts for art lovers this Christmas

Emma-Jane Betts
Read More

Five alternative art exhibitions for Christmas 2020

Catherine Sedgwick
Read More

Sensing the Unseen: Step into Gossaert’s Adoration at the National Gallery

★★★★★
Anna Souter
Read More

Ben Uri Gallery and Museum: The evolution of a force for good

James White
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap

Exhibition and art

Anna Souter

Bhupen Khakhar: You Can't Please All at Tate Modern

★★★★★

Dates

1st June 2016 - 6th November 2016

Entry

£12

Links & directions

WebsiteMap

  • Popular

  • Latest

  • TOP PICKS

  • The Girl and the Spider (Das Mädchen und die Spinne)
    ★★★★★
    Berlinale
  • Celebrate International Women’s Day with a Bombay Sapphire Cocktails & Create masterclass
    Food & Drinks
  • Kings of Leon – When You See Yourself
    ★★★★★
    Album review
  • Limbo
    ★★★★★
    Berlinale
  • Delectible drinks that would make the perfect Mother’s Day gift
    Food & Drinks
  • Killing Escobar
    ★★★★★
    Glasgow
  • “There really hasn’t been a film that deals with a platonic male-female relationship in this way”: Natalie Morales and Mark Duplass discuss Language Lessons
    Berlinale
  • A Brixton Tale
    ★★★★★
    Glasgow
  • Surge
    ★★★★★
    Glasgow
  • The Old Ways
    ★★★★★
    Glasgow
  • Berlinale 2021 winners: The full list
    Berlinale
  • WandaVision
    ★★★★★
    disney
  • Coming 2 America
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Kings of Leon – When You See Yourself
    ★★★★★
    Album review
  • The Dissident
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
The Upcoming
Pages
  • Contact us
  • Join mailing list
  • Join us
  • Our London food map
  • Our writers
  • Support us
  • What, when, why

Copyright © 2011-2020 FL Media

The Neon Demon premiere: A chat with Nicolas Winding Refn and Elle Fanning
KT Tunstall at the Tabernacle | Live review