Arjun Das

From 18 January, Fons Welters presents the work of Indian artist Arjun Das.

Like many from his village, Arjun Das moved to Kolkata with his brothers at the age of ten to work in a restaurant. He later enrolled at Rabindra Bharati University, earning a BFA in 2015 and an MFA in Sculpture in 2017. Das's experience as a migrant laborer has profoundly shaped his artistic practice. His background enables him to portray the realities of working-class life through his art. Incorporating found and recycled materials into his work, he applies carving techniques to transform reclaimed wood into intricately detailed relief works.

Maastricht is indebted to its excavations and to the people who carried them out. Two thousand years ago, the Romans quarried Limburg for marl to produce building blocks. In the thirteenth century, limestone from the region was used to construct the city's walls and churches. In the 1920s, the ENCI (Eerste Nederlandse Cement Industrie), located on the Sint-Pietersberg, was the largest cement factory in Europe. As the ground was excavated, more and more fossils came to light, including the first Mosasaur skull in 1764. Many of these fossils are housed today in the Natuurhistorisch Museum Maastricht.

Das’s work remains deeply rooted in the working-class communities of the places where he resides. Since his arrival at the Jan van Eyck Academie, he has frequently visited construction sites throughout the city. Although ENCI’s mining operations ceased in 2018, several former workers have given Das original building stones from Maastricht’s historic wall, as well as newer stones used for repairs. Under the title SOME RUINS ARE EXTANT……. Transient city and rooted one, he uses techniques inspired by archaeological excavation methods to carve new ‘fossils’ into these preserved fragments, depicting tools belonging to the city's unacknowledged workers.

Using marl, found wood, and drawings, Das creates a working-class iconography. He contrasts these depictions with imagery of bourgeois power and comfort, visualizing the mirrored worlds of rich and poor. The marl fossils attempt to fill the absences in the region’s historical archive, while his wood carvings and drawings introduce a contemporary visual vocabulary of the working class.[1]
 
Arjun Das (1994) lives and works in Kolkata, India. Das has had several solo exhibitions, including ‘Land of the Leal’ (2023) at Dhi Artspace, Hyderabad, IN, and ‘Traces’ (2019) at Museum Forum Schlossplatz, CH. Das has participated in various group exhibitions, including ‘In the Vacuum We Felt Air’ at Kunstfort Vijfhuizen, NL, ‘An Unlocated Window of Myself’ (2023) at Dotwalk Gallery, Delhi, IN, ‘PERSPECTA 17’ (2017) at Gallery 88, Kolkata, IN, and ‘Persistence of Memory’ (2019) at Art Positive Gallery, New Delhi, IN.

[1] Jan van Eyck Academie. Publication issued on the occasion of Open Studios, 20–23 June 2024. Texts by Jan van Eyck participants in collaboration with Amanda Sarroff. Translations by Thea Wieteler. Editing by Solange Roosen and Liva Laure.