Renowned artist Shahid Rassam while addressing a press conference at Karachi Press Club on Sunday condemned the calling off of the solo paintings exhibition by him at VMH Museum, Kolkata just three hours before the opening ceremony of the exhibition, which was going to be held on 20th February, 2016.
The exhibition was first of the series "Ghalib and Gulzar" consisting of 50 paintings on the theme of the poetry of Ghalib and Gulzar. It took four years to complete these paintings by the artist. And the VMH Museum informed the artist only through an email that the exhibition has been called off due to unavoidable circumstances. A little later the Museum told the artist as Gulzar Sahib was not coming and the chief guest the Governor Bengal was also not coming to the exhibition. "My question is that people come to an exhibition to see an artist's work and to enjoy the paintings, where in the world any exhibition was cancelled due to the reason if a celebrity or a chief guest could not come to an opening ceremony of a paintings exhibition. It was a lame excuse," he said. Afterwards the VMH Museum started humiliated attitude towards the artist and defamed him by negative propaganda in the media. The Museum also charged the artist due to the cancellation of the exhibition which was by no means his mistake.
The artist Shahid Rassam showed a catalogue and invitation cards printed by the VMH Museum for the exhibition to prove his point and showed video clippings of interviews with Gulzar Sahib. The VMH Museum has launched a one sided story through Indian media before the artist reached Delhi and gave his side of story to the media.-PR