ROM Curator Exemplifies Bollywood Cinema Showcards
Shaheed, Pocket Maar, Dharma – classic Bollywood films from the 1950s to the 1980s. Relive the debuts of these groundbreaking films and more at the Royal Ontario Museum’s Bollywood Cinema Showcards exhibit.
Shaheed, Pocket Maar, Dharma – classic Bollywood films from the 1950s to the 1980s. Relive the debuts of these groundbreaking films and more at the Royal Ontario Museum’s Bollywood Cinema Showcards exhibit.
After more than 30 years, the ROM celebrates art behind Bollywood films through cinema showcards, movie posters and other film advertisements during the 1950s to the 1980s. Experience India’s illustrious film history through nearly 125 pieces on display, featuring the who’s who and popular films of Bollywood.
Aside from the frolic, song, and dance in India cinema, the industry thrived through its colourful and vibrant posters that left an everlasting, vivid image in the minds of millions of viewers across India. Created by local artisans, the cinema showcards were dynamic interpretations of scenes from Bollywood films.
Dr. Deepali Dewan is the mastermind behind this exhibit. She is an Art Historian of South Asian visual culture and joined the ROM in January 2002 as Associate Curator of South Asian Civilizations. Dr. Dewan’s research interests span the 19th- and 20th-century visual cultures of South Asia and the South Asian Diaspora.
Ashna Singh speaks with ROM curator Dr. Deepali Dewan for an in-depth scope on the Bollywood Cinema Showcards: Indian Film Art from the 1950s to the 1980s exhibit.
Q. What in particular interests you about historical art of South Asia and the South Asian Diaspora?
A. In many places in the world, the written word has held a supreme place in culture until recently when the visual image has become pervasive. In contrast, South Asia is a place where the visual image developed from an early period to a sophisticated level as one of the main forms of communication. In a place where many languages have existed side by side and variable literacy rates, the visual image has been the universal form of communication. It is this long history that really fascinates me.
Q. How did you get involved with the Bollywood Cinema Showcards exhibit?
A. I’ve been a curator of South Asian art at the ROM for over nine years. We have always tried to do projects that focus “culture” understood broadly (not a narrow definition of “art”). I heard about a private collection of Bollywood memorabilia last year almost at the same time the IIFA Awards were announced in Toronto. So various things came together at the right time and gave me the opportunity to curate this exhibition of Bollywood Cinema Showcards.
Q. How did your role reinforce the cultural accuracy and integrity of this exhibit?
A. As the curator, it is my job to choose the artifacts on display, do the research behind their meaning, and write the exhibit text so that it is accessible to everyone yet still complex enough so that history doesn’t get simplified to sound bites. I also have to determine the authenticity of the artifacts on display. So all of that takes time, research, consultation, etc, which, it is my hope, shows through in the accuracy and integrity of the exhibit.
Q. What artistic traditions of South Asia are conveyed through the exhibit?
A. Bollywood Cinema Showcards are one of those wonderfully hybrid type of cultural objects. They bring together painting and photography foremost, but are part of the larger package of cinema advertising that shapes the visual culture in the urban and non-urban environments of South Asia.
Q. What is unique about film art from the 1950s to 1980s?
A. The way painting and photograph get combined. You really have to look up close at the actual showcards to fully appreciate this. There are some remarkably creative combinations.
Q. The Bollywood Cinema Showcards exhibit has been launched just in time for the IIFA Awards to take place on June 25th, 2011. What will South Asian Canadians learn about the history of Bollywood cinema from this exhibition?
A. The exhibit provides a historical backdrop for IIFA. There is a timeline to give people a sense of how the Indian cinema industry developed. But also the bright and colorful types of visual culture it generated. The exhibit will give people a sense of a major part of South Asian culture.
Q. What are your personal favourite pieces and why?
A. I love the showcards for the 1974 film Dak Bangla. They are notable for the creativity of their design. Tinted photographs of faces are combined with line drawings of the body as a way to create a whole figure, showing the fluid use of photography and in the long tradition of the painted photograph in India. In this way, the artist plays with negative and positive space, reversing what the viewer would expect to see.
With IIFA just a few days away and the Year of India in Canada, Bollywood Cinema Showcards: Indian Film Art from the 1950s to the 1980s
is a celebration of South Asian heritage through film and visual arts that South - Asian Canadians will cherish.
When: Now Open
Where: Royal Ontario Museum
For more information about the Bollywood Cinema Showcards Exhibition, click HERE.
Click HERE to skip the lines and purchase advance tickets online.
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