Today’s global culture, also fashionably known as brand culture relegates humans and promotes commodities.
In a solo sculpture exhibition being held at Zainul Gallery, Imam Hossain Sumon has showcased a number of drawings and sculptures that raise questions about the overwhelming dominance of brand culture.
The works on display are thematically and conceptually rich. The artist has been working on this concept for the last three years, and hopes to continue on the track for some more time.
Sumon has five sculptures of full figure lengths on display. Done in mixed media, these figures are replica of humans, who are used as advertising tools for different brands.
Titled significantly only by the product they promote like Man with Coca-Cola, Man with Nescafe, Girl with Fair& Lovely, these sculptures reveal the inherent negative impact of these international brands on humans as natural beings.
According to the artist, humans are diminished to and identified with what they advertise. They become slaves to these brands.
‘Brand culture undermines the identity of people for the sake of an overpowering identity of the brand. It works exactly opposite to human culture,’ Sumon shared his opinions with New Age.
Sumon’s other works also reinforce his concept. Titled Eccentric, a series of small and average length sculptures, mostly done from aluminum, brass and wood, are standing in various, odd postures to promote certain products.
‘Brand culture alienates men and women from their natural beings. It is a culture that works by pushing people to the background and pulling commodities to the foreground,’ the artist continues, ‘that’s why the men and women look eccentric and out of order’.
In addition to the Eccentric series, the artist has exhibited 10 drawings in various coloured pens, bearing the same theme.
‘Sumon has constructed art within the context of life. His works stimulate multiple ideas and discloses a new reading of the present’, remarked Lala Rukh Selim, Sumon’s teacher at the department of Sculpture, Faculty of Fine Arts, Dhaka University.
Inaugurated on June 27 at Zainul Gallery-1, the exhibition will run till July 01.
-With New Age input
