5/8 seeks to critique the conformity found in contemporary architectural practices where structures incorporate multiple grids, panels, and reflective surfaces. Here, distracting surfaces mask the dull reality and mediocrity of a concrete sub-structure. The buildings seem to whisper: “We seek to obstruct, deny and turn away.” This is particularly true of building practices involved in the gentrification of often neglected structures in socially deprived areas: think of the quick, and cheap, grid cladding that has been blamed for devastating tower block fires around the world. The logic behind these embellishments seem to be that it is better to see our reflection, not what’s underneath; only looking out, never looking in. It is time for some cold, hard, reflection on the cities we build and the lives they make us live - sometimes, also, the deaths they make us die.
MARK PRIME
Mark Prime is a contemporary artist. Based in India for the last decade, his interest in light, and its attributes, have combined with an affinity for minimalism and geometric abstraction. Resulting works have been realised in a wide range of media including laser installations, sculpture, photography, and, more recently, painting. The artist is an accomplished musician, and rhythm, repetition and synchronised patterns are concepts that continually inform his practice. Prime has had solo exhibitions at Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai (2016) and Nature Morte, Berlin (2013), as well as displaying in group contexts. He is the founder of one of India’s leading exhibition design companies in the region, responsible for some of the most ambitious exhibitions staged in recent times.
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- When is Space? In An Exhibition on Contemporary Architecture Commissioned by Jawahar Kala Kendra, Edited by Rupali Gupte and Prasad Shetty. Jaipur: Jawahar Kala Kendra, 2018.