There is so much happening here that you wouldn’t know what to hit and what to miss. Tinaz Nooshian checks out the ongoing Kala Ghoda Art Festival, with a quaint exhibition on bottles and a display of street furniture, as topmost on the must-see list.

Hair neatly oiled and combed, wearing their Sunday best, busy eyeing a past, completely oblivious to one of the biggest art galleries in the city. But it took just an attractively painted table and chair bang in the middle of the pavement to veer their attention away from their absorbing interest. Done up in brown and yellow ochre, the furniture recreated a roadside barber stall complete with a shaving kit and a mirror sporting the tacky image of a 70s Bollywood hero. “Amitabh cut Rs.10, Shah Rukh Khan – Rs.5, Amrish Puri, Rakesh Roshan free,” one of them read ou the price list breaking into a guffaw.

If someone’s making an attempt to drag art out of the intimidating confines of the stuffy art gallery and make it accessible to the public, then it can’t get closer than this. Meher Bijlani of Artquest has picked motifs from the street, transformed them into art and returned them back to where they belong. so if you happen to walk past the Jehangir Art Gallery, you’ll find the pavement outside lined with a haathgadi, postbox, park bench and a roadside mandir from a first-of-its-kind display, Street Furniture, as part of the Kala Ghoda Festival.

“I thought of taking a piece of the city’s street life, stuff that you see and take for granted, liven it up and making it something out of ordinary,” says Bijlani. So you have a wooden bench by Yashwant Sonawane, painted on with a lady sprawled across it, amid sea shells and flaming orange tropical blossoms – very Gaugin, yellow fish in turquoise waters liven up Brinda Chudasama Miller’s bhelpuri stand supported by a cane bottom decorated with beaded jewellery, a Maruti 800 by Prashant Hirlekar portrays travel with winged humans, aeroplanes and birds taking centre stage, a pani ki gadi by Hirlekar bears the image of a jal pari.

The repose has been overwhelming with practically every passerby stopping to have a dekho and most of the pieces having sold out at the preview itself. “The utility factor was very important. The gola gadi is going to be used a dining table, we’ve put supports on the haathgadi so that it can be made into a two-seater, the postbox can be used to store laundry or toys, and the barber table as a computer desk,” says Bijlani. “Our economic condition doesn’t allow us to splurge on art that can only be admired. We Indians want to possess and use,” explains Prashant Hirlekar who considers it “a challenge” to paint on diverse surfaces. “A canvas is plain while every object offers a subject. It’s fun, like in the barber stall where each brush, razor, scissor that I’have painted on, are a sculpture in themselves,” says the artist who started off by painting a jerry can, creating eyes on either side of the handle that became a nose and the opening, a month.

The Kala Ghoda Art Festival has made way for some artistic experiments and collaborations making it possible for Artquest to present this collection. There is also an array of object d’art made by designers who graduated several years back from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. Called Two Decades of Design, brainchild of Sangita Kathiwada of Morcrafts it includes chairs, telephones, paperweights, and more such utility and decorative objects made creatively.

Beside the serious art that one finds in galleries it is during this festival that one comes across new ideas. For instance Bilmat Zeramicz invited ceramists and painters to work together to make platters. And some artists have teamed up with street children of Akanksha to paint wood objects like cupboards, chairs and benches.

Artquest, Mumbai has embarked on an innovative venture – they take a street object like a bench, a postbox or even a handcart and convert it into a piece of art! These everyday objects are painted on by prominent artists and have great utility value for your home or the office. Displayed at the Kala Ghoda Art Festival last month, these are available at Artquest as well. Hurry, these one-of-a-kind pieces might vanish right under your nose! Inquiries (022) 2150220.

Have you ever stopped to admire a post box or a haathgadi? Sounds absurd... not really. The Artquest exhibition, part of the Kalaghoda Art Festival is displaying “street furniture” where mundane objects are turned into objects of art and is making people stop and take notice of these objects.

The show was conceptualised when Kitchen Art Show was exhibited at the Indigo Restaurant last year and received positive response. Artquest decided to take a step further, They drew a list of interesting items seen on the streets and worked upon them to convert these objects into works of art. The items were chosen such that they could be sold as useful items for homes and offices. A ‘haathgadi’ gets converted to a two seater, a ‘golagadi’ into a dining table and a post box into a laundry box or other storage bin. Talk of creativity!

Postbox, haathgadi, bhelpuri stand may be a common sight but procuring these items for the exhibition was a tiresome task. Meher Bijlani, the person who has conceptualised and curated the show says.” When we went searching for these items we literally had to stop gadiwalas on the road and ask them where we could buy these”. In fact some of the items had to be especially made for the show. The artists were given a free hand in painting these objects. And the outcome of this painstaking task is the colourful and innovative furniture which are on display.

The exhibition in keeping with its theme of street furniture is displayed on the pavement outside Jehangir Art Gallery. Other than the art collectors and artists, the exhibition is attracting attention from students who are intrigued by this art from and occasional passers by who stop to take a look at these items. The motifs on these items are vibrant in colour and open to various interpretations. The man balancing on a wheel depicted on the haathgadi with his thumb imprint depicts his illiteracy. His eyes wide open point towards the fact that he has to be on the watch all the time to survive in this unequal world.

Meher Bijlani adds that she has been over-whelmed by the audience response and most of the items on display have been sold. She says that the furniture pieces were mostly bought by youngsters who are keen to have things which look different and dare to experiment. The artists whose work are on display are Prashant Hirlekar, Yashwant Sonawane, Amritraj Koban, Nitin Utge and Brinda Chudasama Miller.

As far as the next Artquest project is concerned, Ms. Bijlani says that it could be anything from painting buses to railways. So don’t be surprised if one fine day you find 8:47 you have been taking everyday painted and sporting artistic touch.

Meher Bijlani of Artquest Gallery has some unusual furniture on display just outside the Jehangir Art Gallery this week as part of the Kala Ghoda Festival, which ends tomorrow –

Coffee tables made by putting glass over children’s tricycles and Singer sewing machines; an old-time wooden plate rack converted into a CD holder, 60 year old prams, cabinets and chairs that have been given a new look as works of art.

Old recycled pieces of furniture, including indoor; outdoor and children’s furniture have been converted into functional art, painted over by artists like Yashwant and Vishnu Sonawane, Prashant Hirlekar, Sanjay Raut and Mohan Patil.

Meher also has a range of ‘Kitchen Art’, she collects old kettles, jugs, plates, spoons and other items and gets them painted, converting them into art objects that would lend a unique touch to homes.

Artquest will show-case street furniture on the pavement outside the Jehangir Art Gallery. Conceptualised and curated by Meher Bijlani, the exhibition taps into the experiences of life in Mumbai – seeing the haath gadi, the gola gaadi and gives them an artistic interpretation. Items on display include a pani ki gaadi, a bhelpuri stand and a roadside barber stall. The exhibition will be on till Sunday.