Sarnath Banerjee Brings His Gallery Of Losers To Project 88

When Sarnath Banerjee worked his print campaign for the London Olympics around that key figure in sporting history—the loser—he unwittingly gave the “struggle” pride of place. His cast of characters—a judoka who learnt his craft via correspondence courses, a decathlete fighting against himself—struggle in a seemingly Sisyphean endeavour, destined to go absolutely nowhere. It’s a wicked subversion of that oft-heard competition refrain of “going for the gold” something Banerjee plays out by casting his subjects in “second tier” sporting events like judo, fencing, ping pong and javelin. “In any of these works is a great amount of sadness,” says Banerjee who worked 20-odd stories around each panel, before whittling them down.

These works, plus other posters from his Olympics campaign, are for the first time on display outside of England, at Project 88, in a show titled “Barwa Khiladi—a gallery of underachievers”. In addition to the 12 print panels (see some of them here), there are also eight posters and two multi-panelled works (and if you made it for the opening on Monday night, a table tennis table for the use of anyone who fancied a go). It would be too easy to cast this body of work as a paean to anyone who has ever landed in last place, but Banerjee is aiming for something loftier: a sort of accidental spirituality earned from paralysing defeat. In his “Judo for Change”, for instance, a portly man demonstrates various moves “for people who almost made it”, “against rampant individualism” and even “against the cult of genius”. In “Stallios Boubokis”, his whiskered decathlete reckons with his inner demon, that is, himself. In “High Jump”, a dreadlocked high jumper faces the dreaded task of explaining to others what he does for a living. The resulting explanation is Banerjee at his sardonic best, a riff on loneliness and lightness, and losing oneself completely to the pursuit of victory.

Project 88

LocationBMP Building
Ground Floor
N. A. Sawant Marg
Same lane as Colaba Fire Station
Colaba

Phone022 2281 0066/99

Relevant DatesUntil Saturday, November 3

HoursMonday, 2pm to 7pm; Tuesday to Saturday, 11am to 7pm; Sunday, closed

Ticketing & Price InfoFree

Websitewww.project88.in