I would like the readers to understand my proposition for writing of this kind before venturing into the thematic. As everyone knows that Indian art criticism has long been reduced to gossips and celebrity flattery in one end and academic/ theoretical ‘jouissance’ on the other, the only real space for any criticism I feel is left in casual talks and slips of tongue which at least bring to fore some discussions and genuine issues regarding the contemporary art world’s functioning. It is also keeping in mind the strange fear of loosing the little oversaturated market of many serious artists who imaginarily subvert within the sophisticated languages of catalogue activism against the system. I hope these notes might give an agency for their un/consciously and dynamically suppressed ‘real’ criticism of the system. At last it is also keeping in mind my just happening career which would be at stake if one goes for “yet another critical writing” which would be pleasing the art world and maintain the status quo of its liberal, open, inclusive character. Since it’s about installation art, as everybody tells I leave this writing as open ended for the readers to decipher the bits and pieces of specific and general events/artworks I am mentioning.
Baroda is in every way a microcosm of the Indian art world. Probably one would not get such a variety of artists and practice even in any other metropolitan art centers. It would be an arduous task to trace the historical development of installation art in Baroda as there is nothing to refer to. For that sake even the changes in conventional art practice has not yet been systematically written about after the only book ‘Contemporary art in Baroda’(edited by Gulam sheikh). Though there have been serious attempt/s through other means of writing like catalogues (Beyond credos-curated by shivaji panicker, catalogue written by santosh sadanand) on the changes in the art scene here it had to be restricted within the dynamics of an all inclusive gallery show. But installation as a practice has not yet been documented. This makes the context interesting because one is immediately suspicious about the quality of this practice not just in Baroda but even in India as a whole. Also since contemporary Indian art history is tragically caught up in the coffee table flattering catalogues of the artists one has no other option other than referring these to have an insight of what is happening. But unlike other art centers like Bombay, Delhi and Bangalore, artists in Baroda are said to be cautious about picking up the “spectacle culture” which has plagued the Indian art world. As one senior artist put, there has been a resistance in that level because here there are few artists who have seriously attempted to understand the possibilities of language which is part of the local/national cultural ethos. The best known examples would be the attempts in continuing the popular, narrative, satirical and allegorical traditions of Indian art and literature. Interestingly even after the new media christened foreign agency and gallery funded artists have proclaimed the obsoleteness of the conventional art forms, there are artists here who are still able to upturn cultural and social imageries and imaginations with the painted image without giving in to the official and totalitarian discourse of culture.
Any practice in Baroda is inseparably related to the practice in the faculty. And also, since it’s only the students who are experimenting, I would briefly talk about this.
Though there is the legacy of a school (narrative, figurative) within the academy and outside one is often pushed to think whether even today’s practice gains currency only because the artists are associated with this place. One of the reasons which might support this is that most of the artists doing installation art display it outside Baroda and not in Baroda. Obviously the lack of a professional gallery is perhaps a reason. But for a community (if at all) which has always taken the avant-garde stand, it should not be a problem. Also as another artist told many practitioners here have a sound economic background that they don’t at least need a gallery sponsored preview in Baroda. Though there have been a few previews, many a times it’s only for friends and likeminded. This obviously creates a disconnection for the students to know the real experience of such sensory based installations. One can also try to connect this with the idea that students have nothing to look up for inspiration here.
If one compares with the activities in other art metropolis, where funded talks and discussions are conducted every three days Baroda at least has remained calm out of this “facebook phenomena” of projecting ‘happening’ places. But this has also taken a toll in the overall practice, because students are easily jumping into readily available images and information without a critical outlook. One just needs to see the recycled display of imageries for a past few years in the faculty submission to understand this phenomenon. Even regarding art history, as an ex-student said it just touches upon few individuals and their practices and doesn’t explore the changes in the nature of the artwork from an object to other forms. This has definitely impacted in the students practice in adopting information without knowing the context in which the artwork was created.
The art practice in Baroda has a peculiarity unlike other centers. There is a very thin line between the faculty curriculum and the practice outside the faculty. Though the ‘spectacle culture’ is fast catching the student’s displays there is still a check within the faculty. I would not further digress into the (dys) functioning of the faculty because it’s not within the purview of the present writing. But since there are still some really functional individuals in certain departments and there is a scope for a discussion regarding this practice, I had just braced upon this site which is ripe for an excavation in all strata.
Again comparing other art centers you have a few gallery established artists who are really busy in Baroda. As a senior and an emerging artist told that in Baroda since we have artists available unlike other busy art centers you have a scope for discussing and interacting regarding practice. So at least in that way there is a culture of closed door discussions within artist groups. But other than a few galleries from Delhi and Bombay who have contracted artists (but liberally) there is very less of support for particularly young artists to explore the medium of installation. The seasonal descent of collectors and art store owners, though have a guided tour by the artists in position, has not created a culture of genuine support for many young artists who are really willing to experiment. Because of the absence of a proper supportive system ‘ambitious’ installation projects have to wait till the funds are ready. Though this is a genuine problem, the scale and the amount required for many of these installations really make one wonder how the official discourse has interpolated the foundations of any thinking regarding installation. As an artist academician put “Somewhere one thinks that installation and new media is something else. This disconnection is very difficult to make them realize”. Interestingly even when cheap and recycled materials are used they take unwarranted scale and money. This is best visible in the faculty submission where students spend lakhs of rupees for just an academic formality of displaying the year long work for grading. Now the students pre-pone their christening ritual into the market in academic submissions itself!
Though Baroda has a handful of foundations proclaimed/supported emerging artists, the nature of their installations/artwork are far from really probing into the intricacies of the language. They reproduce in different mediums newer, fantastic visualities or specifically putting, mix up traditional and contemporary objects for titillating consumption according to the taste of the system. One would also think about the sad culture of activism which starts with writing projects for funding and ends in showing documents of the projects to apply for fund again. Though one must surely appreciate the N.G.O foundations that readily jump into supporting activist projects, such an easy formula for activist art needs to be questioned for its libertarian social cause. Unfortunately many artist activisms start and ends in the galleries whose owners are enthralled about this intellectual tag added to their products. I would also like to mention the talk about few artists who blew the boom bubbles from the edifices of market only to remain underground when their benefactors “shut their shop”. The change in the economic structures with globalization surely directed the flow of capital into newer fields like art. But unfortunately since art was far away from the main course of the capital flows when a bit of apprehension was felt the channel of money was redirected to other fertile areas. It’s not surprising that many artists have lost their position with this redirection of market flows. Obviously its offseason for the production of artwork, then lets forget the case about huge installations.
Without intervening further in the general idea of installation art in India and specifically Baroda, I honestly want to confess that I wanted to write about the practice of installation but the environmental conditions surrounding the practice is so cold that I had to write such a piece for gaining entry into this spectacular language as its practiced here. With a definite wish to systematically study the genuine and serious efforts of some of the artists here in Baroda I would end these notes with a very relevant quote regarding the practice/practitioners… “The cynical subject is quite aware of the distance between the ideological mask and the social reality, but he none the less still insists upon the mask. The formula, as proposed by Sloterdijk, would then be: "they know very well what they are doing, but still, they are doing it". Cynical reason is no longer naïve, but is a paradox of an enlightened false consciousness: one knows the falsehood very well, one is well aware of a particular interest hidden behind an ideological universality, but still one does not renounce it.” (Cynicism as a Form of Ideology Slavoj Zizek.The Sublime Object of Ideology)
V.Divakar,
Baroda
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Interview with Shivaji Panikkar and Santosh sadanand
# How do you think one can intervene with a curatorial theoretical project when there is suddenly an excess of programmes/ events already “cultivating professional curators”?
According to us it is absolutely useful to have several events running parallel to each other attempting to ‘cultivate’ professional curators and redefine curatorial practices as such; given that each one has its own focus and purpose. In principle, these initiatives, as such can have certain reciprocity, and can develop interactive possibilities and may give rise to valuable understanding about the practices of curation. At the same time, one has to keep a productive skepticism about the sudden surge of lot of curatorial programs, supported by various agencies and institutions. The fact is that presently no university level educational institution in the country is offering any professional training in curation. But on the other hand due to various reasons curation as a specialized activity has come to exist in the Indian art scene since over about fifteen years. Our skepticism and critique of the nature of most of the on- going practices of curation in the country was central in the conceptualization while we are mooted the idea of a travelling workshop around curatorial theory. We think that most of the curatorial ventures, with very few exceptions, are merely about putting together an art exhibition. Most of these put-ups are largely for commercial purposes, and definitively lacked any critical or historical insights as such, and so we felt the need to think in the direction of inculcating art critical inputs into this rapidly growing cultural practice. Moreover, our academic interest in developing a curriculum for a university level course on critical curation is also a central factor of this initiative. It is because of this reason that we decided to pitch the workshop program at the level of a critical engagement with existing curatorial practices as well as theoretical developments.
# since its pronounced as a academic project how do you think the fine arts institutes in India would be responding(if at all) considering the obsolete condition of art historical departments in most of the institutes?
Well, we hope to draw some participants of each workshop from the fine arts institutes. Well, given the dismal conditions there off, it will be difficult to predict the interest from such quarters, or the impact or result of such short term program upon the institutions and their pedagogy. But, we hope that these series of workshop definitely would produce certain impact on the present academic scenario. In other words, this initiative itself can be read as an attempt to create alternative pedagogical spaces.
# Having provided a well researched, interesting, important reading material, Do you think the class room habits of reading, presenting, discussing and re-presenting the information provided and the concept notes would be creatively answering the professional and non academic needs of the practice.
First of all, one of the principle aims of these workshops is to develop the conceptual ambit of curatorial practices. It is central in redefining curatorial practices as critical cultural practices. To facilitate this, a thorough reading on the theoretical aspects of curatorial practices is introduced as a crucial component of these workshops. Having a specific reader for each workshop, insistence on reading, presenting, re-presenting and discussing, and again developing a curation-concept-note and it’s presenting, re-presenting and discussing, is basically an exercise that we consider as a crucial input necessary for developing self-sufficient curator professionals with inbuilt critical and historical knowledge. Our conviction is that if the academic/theoretical ground is sound, the practical aspects will evolve on its own. But, in any case the focus of the workshop is on the academic rigor and not the non- academic/practical issues. We may add that there are agencies like KHOJ and many different kinds of galleries in the country dealing with the non- academic/practical aspects, and the aspiring curators will need to negotiate and re-negotiate with what is possible and what is not, when they have to translate their ideas into reality. Moreover, there are also curatorial projects which are absolutely virtual (say using internet) which do not require to deal with the so called non- academic/practical/infrastructural issues.
# What were the short comings you felt with regard to the first workshop and how do you think of overcoming them particularly with regards to multi disciplinary practices/ participants?
The very first workshop that was held in Baroda was deliberately broad-based and that was it strength and its limitation. Strength because it generated discussions on varied areas and in that sense was exploratory. The limitation was that it was difficult to go deeper into some of the areas that were identified, which we hope will be addressed in the forthcoming events. Despite thematic focus envisaged in the forthcoming events, the aspect of multi disciplinary practices/ participants will be maintained, we hope.
# Considering the fact that the entire Indian art world is still not clear about the changes in the forms of artwork itself how do you think a curatorial theoretical programme would address the needs of the art-community.
The absence of a clear understanding about the rapid pace in which the idea of art work is constantly changing indicates certain crucial questions regarding curation and the field of artistic production in general. If curation is just a mere act of showcasing the art in the way in which we understand, define, and experience the ‘art work’ and a certain mode of contextualization then it would be difficult to define its political efficacy. On the contrary, if curation as a critical cultural practice is at par with redefining the existing modes of artistic production, dissemination and consumption then only it would able to redefine the normative and hegemonic conception about the art-community itself (considering the fact that the gallery- going and largely elite group defines and determines the community as such). Ideally, a critical curatorial practice should make sure the inoperativeness of this community; and in fact that should be the prime motto and mover of its critical spirit.
# other than organizing workshops what would be the function of this nodal center for curation theory.
Apart from the series of five workshops and one colloquium, we hope to develop a course structure/curriculum for curatorial studies at post-graduate level in the university.
# how did your experience of curating (beyond credos) and organizing (multitudes, tracing erasures and other shows) help while working on this project.
We don’t see any serious implication of these shows upon the workshop projects on curation. Our interest about this initiative is largely drawn from the academic and pedagogical dimensions of curation than our own curatorial or organizational experiences per se.
# What is the significance of selecting these places for conducting the workshop which is not within the ambit of the gallery centers so also about curations.
We observed that generally many arts related activities are happening in metropolises like Delhi and Mumbai and there is no need to add one more event in such places. One of the thematic focuses in the workshops is going to be exploring the regional identity questions in relation to national mainstream. Moreover, we wanted to explore the specific dynamics of art making and showing in relation to marginal regions say like Kerala, North East or Jammu and Kashmir. Art history of these regions are somehow been sidelined while writing or curating national histories. Then, there is also a question of how to frame/curate the seemingly backward art. Going by the developments in the recent past, each of these centers have a specific social and political history which needs to be seen in relation to artistic expressions. By having equal representation reserved for the local participants in each of these workshops we hope to understand the problematic of representing the issues that exists in these regional areas.
# Why do you think the topic of region, gender and sexualities is relevant for the workshop in Kerala?
Of course these thematic are important for any place. But at the same time, we hope such initiatives may strengthen the debates around these thematic in the Kerala public sphere. These observations we are making considering the fact that there are already a lot of debates are taking place in Kerala regarding these issues. For instance, the recent controversy over the repeated attack on a dalit women auto-rickshaw driver Chitralekha by the Left trade union (male) workers, and the subsequent debates about the nature of mainstream feminism and dalit feminist’s critique on them and discussions around the newer modes of patriarchal structures and their moral policing etc. illustrate these.
However, from the experience we have gathered from Baroda workshop these are areas that needed urgent focus in a general and broader level too. Region as a focus is possibly going to remain in the two more events; in Jammu as well in North East. Another topic of significance is with regard to Art Historical discipline and museum curation, curating popular culture, which hopefully we would be able to address in the Hyderabad event. There are also thematic like curation and new media art and photography, which would also be addressed in subsequent events. It is also closely linked to developing the curriculum through these series of intellectual engagement. By giving a special (but broader) thematic to each workshop would enable us to identify specific areas, which need unique attention in the academic curriculum.
# How have the galleries which are promoting the present mode of curations react to your project.
Apart from a few gallery owners showed interest in attending some of the open sessions which we have welcomed, there are no specific reactions from any of these quarters regarding the workshops. However, we hope to have certain inputs from them, which was the reason why we had invited Arshia Lokhandwala as a Resource Person in the Baroda workshop.
According to us it is absolutely useful to have several events running parallel to each other attempting to ‘cultivate’ professional curators and redefine curatorial practices as such; given that each one has its own focus and purpose. In principle, these initiatives, as such can have certain reciprocity, and can develop interactive possibilities and may give rise to valuable understanding about the practices of curation. At the same time, one has to keep a productive skepticism about the sudden surge of lot of curatorial programs, supported by various agencies and institutions. The fact is that presently no university level educational institution in the country is offering any professional training in curation. But on the other hand due to various reasons curation as a specialized activity has come to exist in the Indian art scene since over about fifteen years. Our skepticism and critique of the nature of most of the on- going practices of curation in the country was central in the conceptualization while we are mooted the idea of a travelling workshop around curatorial theory. We think that most of the curatorial ventures, with very few exceptions, are merely about putting together an art exhibition. Most of these put-ups are largely for commercial purposes, and definitively lacked any critical or historical insights as such, and so we felt the need to think in the direction of inculcating art critical inputs into this rapidly growing cultural practice. Moreover, our academic interest in developing a curriculum for a university level course on critical curation is also a central factor of this initiative. It is because of this reason that we decided to pitch the workshop program at the level of a critical engagement with existing curatorial practices as well as theoretical developments.
# since its pronounced as a academic project how do you think the fine arts institutes in India would be responding(if at all) considering the obsolete condition of art historical departments in most of the institutes?
Well, we hope to draw some participants of each workshop from the fine arts institutes. Well, given the dismal conditions there off, it will be difficult to predict the interest from such quarters, or the impact or result of such short term program upon the institutions and their pedagogy. But, we hope that these series of workshop definitely would produce certain impact on the present academic scenario. In other words, this initiative itself can be read as an attempt to create alternative pedagogical spaces.
# Having provided a well researched, interesting, important reading material, Do you think the class room habits of reading, presenting, discussing and re-presenting the information provided and the concept notes would be creatively answering the professional and non academic needs of the practice.
First of all, one of the principle aims of these workshops is to develop the conceptual ambit of curatorial practices. It is central in redefining curatorial practices as critical cultural practices. To facilitate this, a thorough reading on the theoretical aspects of curatorial practices is introduced as a crucial component of these workshops. Having a specific reader for each workshop, insistence on reading, presenting, re-presenting and discussing, and again developing a curation-concept-note and it’s presenting, re-presenting and discussing, is basically an exercise that we consider as a crucial input necessary for developing self-sufficient curator professionals with inbuilt critical and historical knowledge. Our conviction is that if the academic/theoretical ground is sound, the practical aspects will evolve on its own. But, in any case the focus of the workshop is on the academic rigor and not the non- academic/practical issues. We may add that there are agencies like KHOJ and many different kinds of galleries in the country dealing with the non- academic/practical aspects, and the aspiring curators will need to negotiate and re-negotiate with what is possible and what is not, when they have to translate their ideas into reality. Moreover, there are also curatorial projects which are absolutely virtual (say using internet) which do not require to deal with the so called non- academic/practical/infrastructural issues.
# What were the short comings you felt with regard to the first workshop and how do you think of overcoming them particularly with regards to multi disciplinary practices/ participants?
The very first workshop that was held in Baroda was deliberately broad-based and that was it strength and its limitation. Strength because it generated discussions on varied areas and in that sense was exploratory. The limitation was that it was difficult to go deeper into some of the areas that were identified, which we hope will be addressed in the forthcoming events. Despite thematic focus envisaged in the forthcoming events, the aspect of multi disciplinary practices/ participants will be maintained, we hope.
# Considering the fact that the entire Indian art world is still not clear about the changes in the forms of artwork itself how do you think a curatorial theoretical programme would address the needs of the art-community.
The absence of a clear understanding about the rapid pace in which the idea of art work is constantly changing indicates certain crucial questions regarding curation and the field of artistic production in general. If curation is just a mere act of showcasing the art in the way in which we understand, define, and experience the ‘art work’ and a certain mode of contextualization then it would be difficult to define its political efficacy. On the contrary, if curation as a critical cultural practice is at par with redefining the existing modes of artistic production, dissemination and consumption then only it would able to redefine the normative and hegemonic conception about the art-community itself (considering the fact that the gallery- going and largely elite group defines and determines the community as such). Ideally, a critical curatorial practice should make sure the inoperativeness of this community; and in fact that should be the prime motto and mover of its critical spirit.
# other than organizing workshops what would be the function of this nodal center for curation theory.
Apart from the series of five workshops and one colloquium, we hope to develop a course structure/curriculum for curatorial studies at post-graduate level in the university.
# how did your experience of curating (beyond credos) and organizing (multitudes, tracing erasures and other shows) help while working on this project.
We don’t see any serious implication of these shows upon the workshop projects on curation. Our interest about this initiative is largely drawn from the academic and pedagogical dimensions of curation than our own curatorial or organizational experiences per se.
# What is the significance of selecting these places for conducting the workshop which is not within the ambit of the gallery centers so also about curations.
We observed that generally many arts related activities are happening in metropolises like Delhi and Mumbai and there is no need to add one more event in such places. One of the thematic focuses in the workshops is going to be exploring the regional identity questions in relation to national mainstream. Moreover, we wanted to explore the specific dynamics of art making and showing in relation to marginal regions say like Kerala, North East or Jammu and Kashmir. Art history of these regions are somehow been sidelined while writing or curating national histories. Then, there is also a question of how to frame/curate the seemingly backward art. Going by the developments in the recent past, each of these centers have a specific social and political history which needs to be seen in relation to artistic expressions. By having equal representation reserved for the local participants in each of these workshops we hope to understand the problematic of representing the issues that exists in these regional areas.
# Why do you think the topic of region, gender and sexualities is relevant for the workshop in Kerala?
Of course these thematic are important for any place. But at the same time, we hope such initiatives may strengthen the debates around these thematic in the Kerala public sphere. These observations we are making considering the fact that there are already a lot of debates are taking place in Kerala regarding these issues. For instance, the recent controversy over the repeated attack on a dalit women auto-rickshaw driver Chitralekha by the Left trade union (male) workers, and the subsequent debates about the nature of mainstream feminism and dalit feminist’s critique on them and discussions around the newer modes of patriarchal structures and their moral policing etc. illustrate these.
However, from the experience we have gathered from Baroda workshop these are areas that needed urgent focus in a general and broader level too. Region as a focus is possibly going to remain in the two more events; in Jammu as well in North East. Another topic of significance is with regard to Art Historical discipline and museum curation, curating popular culture, which hopefully we would be able to address in the Hyderabad event. There are also thematic like curation and new media art and photography, which would also be addressed in subsequent events. It is also closely linked to developing the curriculum through these series of intellectual engagement. By giving a special (but broader) thematic to each workshop would enable us to identify specific areas, which need unique attention in the academic curriculum.
# How have the galleries which are promoting the present mode of curations react to your project.
Apart from a few gallery owners showed interest in attending some of the open sessions which we have welcomed, there are no specific reactions from any of these quarters regarding the workshops. However, we hope to have certain inputs from them, which was the reason why we had invited Arshia Lokhandwala as a Resource Person in the Baroda workshop.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Landscapes of memory
I would start this writing with an off note citation. I would like to refer to a photograph which is being repeatedly published in many dailies in the recent times. This is photograph of a dilapidated structure, a ruin of a gruesome genocide, the pain and the repercussions of which are even felt today. I am referring to the photograph of “Gulberg society”. The significance of the photograph lies not just in representing the fact/incident/event it stands for, but it reminds us in understanding our present as the greatest failure of the civil society to mourn or attempt to resurrect in posterity a better future. The photograph offers many meanings. It stands for the ongoing struggle of the people to remember the scar, to question the cold blooded callousness of the state. It represents the erasing and normalizing attitude of the state in this case even the civil society. It represents the fascism embedded in the state and its legal bodies. The news papers reduce it to a ‘news’, sufficing the photos with a factual mention of the “incident”, or sometimes referring to the people’s attempt to offer justice to the victims. But more often it suffices the news about the failure to punish the perpetrators who heroically and freely occupy a column in the same paper. Even after daring efforts by some journalists to make the perpetrators, speak up themselves the act of genocide, the civil society and the entire system stands a miserable failure to deliver justice to this heinous past. This indifference clearly points us to the inability and the immaturity as society to respect individual and collective memory which gives a free hand for state power and authority to exercise its hold invisibly in our minds.
“Articulating the past historically does not mean recognizing it ‘the way it really was’ (Ranke). It means appropriating a memory as it flashes up at a moment of danger.”- Walter Benjamin
"Memory is not an instrument for surveying the past but its theater. It is the medium of past experience, just as the earth is the medium in which dead cities lie buried. He who seeks to approach his own buried past must conduct himself like a man digging." - Walter Benjamin
Snapshots from the past
The visual constructions of Anto’s work largely depend upon the dark room of memory. Like bringing back to light/life the captured moment of the photograph through the processes in the dark room, he paints with references and flashes of memory, which brings some experiences to light in his works. It would not be wrong to say his works heavily depends upon photography and are photographic themselves. By saying this I shall not reduce his paintings to the ‘in demand’ titillating surfaces of the so called photo realism or Mediatic realisms. Anto’s paintings are more about the ideology behind the process of photography itself.
His paintings are about death. They are about the ruins of time. They proclaim that what is bygone is irretrievable lost only to relive in memory as living dead. It is similar to the photograph which pronounces the death of the moment it captures; thereby proving that the moment is irretrievable and can only be re-constructed in the present. His visual constructions are extensions of the past interpreted/interrupted by the present. The significance of such an attempt is the ability of not accepting the past as a casual account of many incidents connected by a common thread. By willfully selecting memories which suffices his present intent, he pushes his work into the terrain of the historical. This restructuring/resurrection is enabled by the help of photographs which connect him with some instants of the past. This is also enabled by the particular use of frames in his paintings. Most of his paintings are framed by the foliages and other organic flows. This immediately refers to the framing of the photograph which cuts and trims the reality as it is technically viable and also as it is intended subjectively by the person photographing. The framing of an incident/event/reality though promises a nearness to the reality as it had happened to be, it also proves that, it is not the only one version of the reality and there were other views and other frames of references simultaneously. Anto too makes a deliberate selection of images which proves that his past was not only that instant which he selected to represent but also a lot of memories which is forgotten. This instance selected is actually a frozen moment. Like the photograph which can only freeze a particular moment thereby making it timeless, his selection of the instance makes it timeless and allows to spatially visualize the memory. The frames make us feel that we are part of the extended picture plane thereby assures that the viewing is happening in the present. His works like ‘Puparium’s visions of the past’ brings an interesting remainder of the present again. The ‘pupae’ during this transforming state are inactive. We can relate this with the instant of remembrance or the moment of the flashing memory which is flat and timeless.
His recent “untitled” work can been seen as the most assured understanding of his investigations of the (his) past. The framed space occupied in other compositions, where we find painted photographs of a house or a person or a child, here is taken by a skeleton. Probably he assures that the memory and past itself as dead; A memory which is irretrievably lost but continues to recur as a flash, as an image always assuring nothing other than its own death. This past is like a ruin which could be only “reconstructed” in the present as we remember it in its moment of danger of losing it again. Anto seizes this moment and relates it through a laborious process of painting thereby recollects the experiences as fragments never complete. Like snap shots which capture instants his works frame his memories on the surfaces.
Dissolving bodies
Srinivasan’s depiction of bodies represents a process than a final outcome. In that way they are always in the process of becoming something else. Though his bodies are mostly in the stage of dissolving, yet a lot of recognizable traces of the objective body are found. I would like to read this transformation as a movement from the objective to the subjective or a movement from the real to the virtual. They are bodies transforming and dissolving in the flux and flows of the nature. Interestingly his works rarely separates the foreground and the background. They are in the same plane intermingling, overlapping and simultaneously existing. The bodies whether human or animal, are always represented not just as objectively known but as made up of a nest like formation. Does this point towards the temporary status of our existence itself? Though there is a pointer towards a spiritual (not religious), I would like to read this dissolution (sublimation as he refers to) as an attempt to realize the multiple flows of nature and the cultural within oneself. One can see the elements of the human/cultural floating, intermingling and overlapping the landscapes. This can be further substantiated by the dissolving contours of his bodies. If we read that the stark lines which build the bodies defines its individuality by separating it from the ground, we also can read that the fragmented lines which seem to blow away from the body are necessarily the same which combine to constitute the body, that defines the contour in the picture. Most of his paintings are about his bodily sensations as the figures gesture. Interestingly these sensations are both internal and external or neither internal nor external. They are always in the threshold of a feeling which is indeterminate. His inward looking/feeling/sensing is always at once projected outside the body. This process enables him to maneuver in the realms of surrealism and even abstract language. His bodies are reservoirs containing energy potentials which the contours when dissolved becomes the bodies without organs, without limitations. His landscapes are also landscapes of experiences which places it in the realm of the memories. His works are like travelogues (as he titles) whose remembering throws upon new light on the individual self always in interaction with the outside.
Postscript:
I would like this writing to be read not as a promotional venture of the established discourse , rather one of the possible readings the works presented offers. The writing doesn’t emphasize that the reading gives a final say or is the only possible understanding of the works other than the artist’s intent. My intention in this writing was to briefly read the works by referring to certain frameworks, which I believe enables one to grasp the present socio-cultural condition in its polyphonic variations. Though both of their works traverse memories they belong to different terrains. Their terrains are marked by their respective intentions in remembering their memories. The significance of their work is that in a time where memory is becoming a much contested space for differing ideologies the need to nurture memories surely gains as a significant political act of rupture.
I would like to again conclude with an off note that there are news reports of scientists in the west and elsewhere attempting to work on a wonder drug which would erase traumatic memories of human! Obviously every authoritarian regime would be open for such audacious experiments in the name of humanity…
V.Divakar
Art Critic, Vadodara.
I would like to thank Rollie Mukherjee for her valuable suggestions.
for more details visit http://www.chaithanya-artgallery.com/exhibition.php
I would start this writing with an off note citation. I would like to refer to a photograph which is being repeatedly published in many dailies in the recent times. This is photograph of a dilapidated structure, a ruin of a gruesome genocide, the pain and the repercussions of which are even felt today. I am referring to the photograph of “Gulberg society”. The significance of the photograph lies not just in representing the fact/incident/event it stands for, but it reminds us in understanding our present as the greatest failure of the civil society to mourn or attempt to resurrect in posterity a better future. The photograph offers many meanings. It stands for the ongoing struggle of the people to remember the scar, to question the cold blooded callousness of the state. It represents the erasing and normalizing attitude of the state in this case even the civil society. It represents the fascism embedded in the state and its legal bodies. The news papers reduce it to a ‘news’, sufficing the photos with a factual mention of the “incident”, or sometimes referring to the people’s attempt to offer justice to the victims. But more often it suffices the news about the failure to punish the perpetrators who heroically and freely occupy a column in the same paper. Even after daring efforts by some journalists to make the perpetrators, speak up themselves the act of genocide, the civil society and the entire system stands a miserable failure to deliver justice to this heinous past. This indifference clearly points us to the inability and the immaturity as society to respect individual and collective memory which gives a free hand for state power and authority to exercise its hold invisibly in our minds.
“Articulating the past historically does not mean recognizing it ‘the way it really was’ (Ranke). It means appropriating a memory as it flashes up at a moment of danger.”- Walter Benjamin
"Memory is not an instrument for surveying the past but its theater. It is the medium of past experience, just as the earth is the medium in which dead cities lie buried. He who seeks to approach his own buried past must conduct himself like a man digging." - Walter Benjamin
Snapshots from the past
The visual constructions of Anto’s work largely depend upon the dark room of memory. Like bringing back to light/life the captured moment of the photograph through the processes in the dark room, he paints with references and flashes of memory, which brings some experiences to light in his works. It would not be wrong to say his works heavily depends upon photography and are photographic themselves. By saying this I shall not reduce his paintings to the ‘in demand’ titillating surfaces of the so called photo realism or Mediatic realisms. Anto’s paintings are more about the ideology behind the process of photography itself.
His paintings are about death. They are about the ruins of time. They proclaim that what is bygone is irretrievable lost only to relive in memory as living dead. It is similar to the photograph which pronounces the death of the moment it captures; thereby proving that the moment is irretrievable and can only be re-constructed in the present. His visual constructions are extensions of the past interpreted/interrupted by the present. The significance of such an attempt is the ability of not accepting the past as a casual account of many incidents connected by a common thread. By willfully selecting memories which suffices his present intent, he pushes his work into the terrain of the historical. This restructuring/resurrection is enabled by the help of photographs which connect him with some instants of the past. This is also enabled by the particular use of frames in his paintings. Most of his paintings are framed by the foliages and other organic flows. This immediately refers to the framing of the photograph which cuts and trims the reality as it is technically viable and also as it is intended subjectively by the person photographing. The framing of an incident/event/reality though promises a nearness to the reality as it had happened to be, it also proves that, it is not the only one version of the reality and there were other views and other frames of references simultaneously. Anto too makes a deliberate selection of images which proves that his past was not only that instant which he selected to represent but also a lot of memories which is forgotten. This instance selected is actually a frozen moment. Like the photograph which can only freeze a particular moment thereby making it timeless, his selection of the instance makes it timeless and allows to spatially visualize the memory. The frames make us feel that we are part of the extended picture plane thereby assures that the viewing is happening in the present. His works like ‘Puparium’s visions of the past’ brings an interesting remainder of the present again. The ‘pupae’ during this transforming state are inactive. We can relate this with the instant of remembrance or the moment of the flashing memory which is flat and timeless.
His recent “untitled” work can been seen as the most assured understanding of his investigations of the (his) past. The framed space occupied in other compositions, where we find painted photographs of a house or a person or a child, here is taken by a skeleton. Probably he assures that the memory and past itself as dead; A memory which is irretrievably lost but continues to recur as a flash, as an image always assuring nothing other than its own death. This past is like a ruin which could be only “reconstructed” in the present as we remember it in its moment of danger of losing it again. Anto seizes this moment and relates it through a laborious process of painting thereby recollects the experiences as fragments never complete. Like snap shots which capture instants his works frame his memories on the surfaces.
Dissolving bodies
Srinivasan’s depiction of bodies represents a process than a final outcome. In that way they are always in the process of becoming something else. Though his bodies are mostly in the stage of dissolving, yet a lot of recognizable traces of the objective body are found. I would like to read this transformation as a movement from the objective to the subjective or a movement from the real to the virtual. They are bodies transforming and dissolving in the flux and flows of the nature. Interestingly his works rarely separates the foreground and the background. They are in the same plane intermingling, overlapping and simultaneously existing. The bodies whether human or animal, are always represented not just as objectively known but as made up of a nest like formation. Does this point towards the temporary status of our existence itself? Though there is a pointer towards a spiritual (not religious), I would like to read this dissolution (sublimation as he refers to) as an attempt to realize the multiple flows of nature and the cultural within oneself. One can see the elements of the human/cultural floating, intermingling and overlapping the landscapes. This can be further substantiated by the dissolving contours of his bodies. If we read that the stark lines which build the bodies defines its individuality by separating it from the ground, we also can read that the fragmented lines which seem to blow away from the body are necessarily the same which combine to constitute the body, that defines the contour in the picture. Most of his paintings are about his bodily sensations as the figures gesture. Interestingly these sensations are both internal and external or neither internal nor external. They are always in the threshold of a feeling which is indeterminate. His inward looking/feeling/sensing is always at once projected outside the body. This process enables him to maneuver in the realms of surrealism and even abstract language. His bodies are reservoirs containing energy potentials which the contours when dissolved becomes the bodies without organs, without limitations. His landscapes are also landscapes of experiences which places it in the realm of the memories. His works are like travelogues (as he titles) whose remembering throws upon new light on the individual self always in interaction with the outside.
Postscript:
I would like this writing to be read not as a promotional venture of the established discourse , rather one of the possible readings the works presented offers. The writing doesn’t emphasize that the reading gives a final say or is the only possible understanding of the works other than the artist’s intent. My intention in this writing was to briefly read the works by referring to certain frameworks, which I believe enables one to grasp the present socio-cultural condition in its polyphonic variations. Though both of their works traverse memories they belong to different terrains. Their terrains are marked by their respective intentions in remembering their memories. The significance of their work is that in a time where memory is becoming a much contested space for differing ideologies the need to nurture memories surely gains as a significant political act of rupture.
I would like to again conclude with an off note that there are news reports of scientists in the west and elsewhere attempting to work on a wonder drug which would erase traumatic memories of human! Obviously every authoritarian regime would be open for such audacious experiments in the name of humanity…
V.Divakar
Art Critic, Vadodara.
I would like to thank Rollie Mukherjee for her valuable suggestions.
for more details visit http://www.chaithanya-artgallery.com/exhibition.php
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Towards a polyphonic desirability and unfinalizability of the visual
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“..it is quite possible to imagine and postulate a unified truth that requires a plurality of consciousness, one that cannot in principle be fitted into the bounds of a single consciousness, one that is, so to speak, buy its very nature full of event potential and is born at a point of contact among various conciousness”-M.Bakthin in Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics.
Mikhail.Bakhtin in analyzing Dostoevsky’s Novels tells that truth is not a statement, a sentence or a phrase. Instead, truth is a number of mutually addressed, though contradictory and logically inconsistent, statements. Truth needs a multitude of carrying voices. It cannot be held within a single mind, it also cannot be expressed by “a single mouth.” The polyphonic truth requires many simultaneous voices. Bakhtin does not mean to say that many voices carry partial truths that complement each other. A number of different voices do not make the truth if simply “averaged”, or “synthesized.” “It is the fact of mutual addressivity, of engagement, and of commitment to the context of a real-life event, that distinguishes truth from untruth.”*
The attempt in this writing is not to describe the works as generally the rituals of the exhibition prescribe, but is to again articulate another set of signage which would try relating to this “event” in its material presence/present. It is also to understand how the individuals have articulated/uttered their subjectivities which are but the material carriers of the ideology they represent through the responses of the viewer. Here again I am not in an attempt to read the entire body of the works which are presented but rather would try to generally understand the structures and read into what I desire out of viewing these art works. The intention to read this event through the occurrence of the Bakthin is that he reads language as living only in the dialogic interaction of those who make use of it. Since the viewer perceives and understands the meaning of the visual, simultaneously taking an active responsiveness towards the work. He either agrees or disagrees with it, and the chain may continue. So a viewer adopts a responsive attitude towards the work/visual which the person who creates also expects. Since the artist doesn’t expect the same kind of passive duplication of his intentions in the viewers mind, rather he expects a response, an agreement, may be even an objection. “Therefore each utterance/ (articulation) is also filled with various responsive reactions to other utterances of the given sphere of speech/ (visual) communication.”* A spontaneous response is required which is necessarily not calculated and rational. This is because the activity would be a joint and collective one where we all are part of it. So any activity done by any individual moves from his individualized self and becomes a collective act where no one person needs to take complete responsibility since its is shared by many. So it depends on all those who are involved and who make a responsive activity and generate significant meanings out of it. So each event occurs as a responsive reaction to the previous events. Thus it continues as a rally without stopping at a singular incident.
So emerges our next problem regarding the question of the unfinalizability of the visual. Can a visual be unfinalizable? Yes, because its meaning never gets fully understood and each visual contains the uniqueness of itself and its relative surrounding within which it has taken shape of from. Its context of formation i.e. the subjective formation etc. never gets completed with just the artist. It reproduces and multiplies as long as the viewers actively read different meanings into it as ever present. This also removes the problem as truth only emerging only from the author’s visualizations. It makes the relation more dialogic by creating the new kind of work which is “no longer as a direct expression of the author’s truth, but an active creation of truth in the consciousness of he author, the signs and the viewer in which all participate as equals”.
Will such attempts from the viewer alone suffice the unfinalizability of the image? I think the structures that define art, including artist themselves need to take up this responsibility. As in the case of the monologic mode where it is addressed to single (no) viewer it restricts the generation of meanings and doesn’t grow to infinite productions. So the attempts must be towards a dialogic active mode which is all inclusive. This dialogic position which the artist takes will be a new position in relation with his works and the viewers. This position will be “a fully realized and thoroughly consistent dialogic position” as Bakthin says. The artist’s position requires a new creative process where occurring in “the real present” and not as an objective/mechanical observer removed and just inscribing details and withdrawing himself once the creation is finished. This would enable the signs within the creation to engage freely without the interference of the artist’s authority thereby making them not only as objects of artist authority but also as signs which have their own free signifying discourse. The significance of the polyphonic mode in the visual language over the monologic one is that, the rituals of the art field already inscribes certain functions through its structures for the artwork to be consumed. So if it is just giving away only to its object hood and restrains addressing itself in a monologic mode the purpose of dialogue doesn’t occur. And it falsely projects a sign system which is authoritative and professional in its surface. It doesn’t enter the realm of the rhetoric or the fictional; thereby, takes only the official and standardized prescriptions without any resistance. This exclusiveness of the visual could be resisted only when everyone participates in the responsive act and allow its dissemination further. This then would be the polyphonic truth of the visual where the individual (meaning) would not be labeled as something fixed rather as something which can change. Also the meaning no more stays within the ambit of ones authority or control. Therefore each representation would be distinctly individual and also equally representative of the other voices along with it.
As mentioned earlier the attempt in this writing is not to have a blanket concept of generalization about the presented works. It’s also not to undermine the individual struggles and contributions that have gone into these specific creations. But it is an attempt towards a desire to “act”. An act which may probably include every participant (artist, work of art, viewer) even if antagonistic but allow the concept to “rally” further in all possible realms both real and virtual. It’s a desire for such “events” to recur infinitely. An event where individual voices are respected for their specific subjective orientations, but yet collective formations are desired in their varied possibilities and combinations which is inclusive yet dialogic.
* Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, M.Bakthin.
V.Divakar,
Art writer, Bangalore.
Band of Outsiders
Band of Outsiders
“Everything that is new is thereby, automatically, traditional”
• Odile translating Eliot in the class room scene.
The imperative to title this essay as “Band of Outsiders” is surely keeping in mind the famous film of Jean-Luc Godard by the same name. I am using the film’s 'script' as a conceptual framework for the show and am using the film itself as a script for structuring my essay. By freely taking some shots/ scenes from the film I would try to put the show in a context relevant to my propositions. Since Godard made this film on the pulp fiction based Hollywood B movies I found it as the most suitable context to write on a show which is being showcased in America. Like the characters in his film the artists in this show are in many ways outsiders other than really being ‘Non-American’! My attempt primarily would be in understanding how some of these artists belong to this category of outsiders within the legitimated contemporary art practice in India. My attempt is also to find a way to be outside the writing in the process of writing this catalogue. Since Godard freed himself from the tyranny of plot in a film by making a film with a similar plot, I would also try to free myself from the tyranny of this ritualistic writing by writing a catalogue of a similar kind.
Arthur: “How much money did she say?
Franz: “A big pile she said”
“May be 40 or 50 wads of bills, Could be 200 million”
“Still I wonder why she told me”
Godard himself didn’t pay much attention to the story which is about two boys (Arthur &Franz) who meet a girl (Odile) at the English class and learn from her that there is a cache of money in the villa where she lives with her aunt and they plan to steal it. Peculiarly Godard is not interested in the question why they are up to it. He never mentions the circumstances which led them to plan the robbery except in a dialogue where Arthur tells “it’s better to be rich and happy than poor and unhappy”. So I would also not concentrate upon the intent of the show, rather I would concentrate only on the artists works put together. Also as Franz tells that he read an American book where it tells that
“Some things are best hidden in full view of everyone”, I would also not mull upon the capital interests which programmes these shows in a broader sense. I would try to investigate the linguistic traits these artists engage with, which may enable us in understanding the concepts and ideas each of the artist deal with. It seems that all of the artists have a discomfort with the reality being represented around them. There is also the possibility that even the dissent itself has been institutionalized by the respective christening forces of the market! Might be there is also the possibility that the stakes being high in the art field, the competence is proved only by rejecting all the consumable inscriptions the surface generally carries along.
‘Here I would not digress anymore on these aspects and let the viewer/ readers decide on those for themselves.’
Franz: If there’s nothing to say, let’s have a moment - a minute of silence.
Odile: you can really be dumb sometimes.
Franz: A minute of silence can be a loooooooooong time. A real minute of silence takes forever.
Parul Dave Mukherji says in her catalogue essay on Sathyanand’s paintings “if one were to characterize contemporary Indian art by a few words, “death”, “dystopia” and “nostalgia” rush to mind. This does not preclude the playful, the aesthetic and the erotic but even the most ebullient, celebratory and ludic are refracted through the lens of unrepresentable…..”* . Also there have been genuine attempts to formulate languages which can articulate/represent the repressed in ways which doesn’t snatch the voice from the represented subjects.
Also one significant thing which has been the single thread linking many of the artists who practice in different parts of the country is their complete obsession with the complexities of urban life . The irony is that this urbanized ideology has been reproduced even in most of the leading art institutes without any amount of skepticism. It is evident by the fact that most of their pedagogical interests are still structured around the westernized colonial frameworks which largely draw back to the Neo-Classicist aesthetical sensibilities. The few art institutes which have tried to come out of this colonial legacy and their counterpart i.e., traditionalist essentialism, through individual subversions in pedagogy couldn’t but resist the strong urban cultural gaze in their art practice. Whatever much publicized re-looking has been done, has subscribed to essentialising or eroticizing the rural (subject) and thereby making it easily consumable for the market forces. Not to mention the newly emerged galleries found enough off season buyers for these traditional souvenirs. It’s a sad situation to tell that barring a few artists, contemporary Indian art/artists have not engaged with the ongoing tragedy of innumerable farmer suicides and the encroachment of state and capitalists machinery that sometimes deprives them of their livelihood. The reason may be that these ‘othered citizens’ don’t make a tasty fodder for the glitz of the media or it doesn’t fit with the international positioning of the Indian state vis-à-vis the art world.
Now having read a brief introduction to the Indian art practice in general I would like to go into more specific details of the artists showcased. I would also like to add to the observation of Parul Dave Mukherji that along with the overwhelming images of dystopia, death and nostalgia there are also very significant attempts to read the already existing spaces within art practice as “other spaces”. If one reads some of the art practice today in India in this light one might probably gather what Parul is mentioning as nostalgia and the dystopic reality are some of the failed utopian dreams. I think many artists have come to terms with the setbacks of certain ‘radical dreams’ and have started working for options within existing spaces of galleries and the other sister/brother bodies. Many have also realized that probably there is nothing beyond credos* and everything is already within the practice only…. This is not to say that they are oedipalized completely within this holy familial structure of market. But they have certainly worked out ways where the tyrannical oedipalizing force is channelised into creative spaces of imagining possibilities.
“Franz had read of an American who took 9min45 sec to visit the Louvre. They decided to do better”
I would like to discuss the works of Vivek Vilasini in this context. On the one hand it suits the hierarchies of organizing the established facets of catalogue writing simply by the virtue of being the senior most among the artists showcased, but on the other hand this criterion alone won’t satisfy my decision to start with a description and interpretation of his work for the simple reason that his works always retain a critical edge in terms of their political engagement. Vivek has critiqued official and tyrannical ideologies with images of sarcasm and everyday pun. His photographs particularly point to the already evident carnivalesque existing in the midst of our everyday life. His famous ‘vernacular chants’, a series of photographs on popular representations of Gandhi completely destabilize the official and elite recognitions of Gandhian ideology and ridicule it with these popular versions where he is venerated even in the form of his adversaries. His other works on the reclamation sites easily questions the meanings/life of these objects in our daily life. They contend by bringing ideologically opposite images like that of Buddha with an imperial eagle or a missile. These disposed reclamation sites expose the hypocrisy and the clash of ideologies in our daily lives which are often unrecognized. He consciously allows the consumption of tradition to critique larger and wider national and international issues. The images of traditional Kathakali though represent a very nativist. exoticised version , Vilasini subverts these images by making them perform contemporary dilemmas and political tensions. He brings in the politics of the locale with all its polyphonic variations.
It is at this point that an artist like K.P.Reji would be very significant to understand the politics of seeing/blindness in the everyday lives*. His images of laboring people engaged in every day acts also destabilize the general notions of our visibility. The images of Reji never allow the subject to be valorized into the imagination of some Others, but they read the laboring subject in his/her position as always becoming something other than his/her assigned self. His unusual spatial delineation which includes the use of architecture actually ridicules the very system which imposes these tyrannical ordering of spaces. Moreover as Santhosh says “by partaking in the politics of everyday life they frontally refuse to produce any space for the middleclass intelligentsia to invest pity and sympathy (to the marginal) and thereby reject the blessings of their political capital.”*(Santhosh.S, The politics of everyday life)
Here I would like to talk about Kiran Subbaiah because his works have always escaped the general notions of art objects. Though working within the sphere of this legitimated art, his works/things/objects have been always questioning our intentions of predetermined viewing. By creating quasi functional absurd objects, he touches upon surrealist tendencies but moves deeper into questions of object’s being within defining structures. His works are directed at objects and, correlatively, upon "objects as they are encountered".
Lokesh Khodke basically locates his protagonists in these middle class spaces. He similarly understands the spatial metaphor by reading the ingrained politics of caste and class from his own subjective position. He reads the contemporary situations in India by remembering the mythological casteist roots of ordering spaces in India. Benoy. P.J observes that “Lokesh’s attempt here does mark an Indian variation to the surrealist language in so far as ‘the originality of surrealism was to have recognized that a society could be founded in which revolt would be accepted as a fundamental principle”. Further he says that “Lokesh’s attempt is original in so far as he takes recourse to the iconic aspect of Indian art to carefully subvert or work around these images”* (Benoy P.J, Beyond Apocalypse;The works of Lokesh Khodke) By reading these as ongoing projects he critiques them from within, by formally destabilizing them with absurd other existences. He brings to fore the casteist inscriptions which forcibly happen over spaces of habitation and also read these within the human body’s sensations.
Since we have touched upon the aspect of surrealism I would now like to discuss the work of Sumedh Rajendran because it questions the existing visual order by breaking the fixed hierarchies of viewing itself. He incoherently puts the fragments together in his sculptural installations breaking all singular notions of truths and thereby about existence. His works often treads the path of absurdity, mutilating organic understanding of wholeness as systematized by the order. Slipping from the definitions of a definitive form, his works often stand on the fringes of the “might be”. Sumedh’s violent sculptures are not formal surfaces of spectacles, but they portray the deep symbolic violence done by the system in the everyday subjective engagements of the subjects.
To continue on this dystopic note the works of sathyanand’s isolated landscapes and the inhibiting half body machinations evidently brings about the metaphors of ruin and death. As Parul says “they mark a death of a personhood, subjectivity and herald a birth of a caricature, of the grotesque, of skulls and skeletons, of automata, of stultified landscapes and frozen rivers and seas.” *( Reliquary, Parul Dvae Mukherji) Taking references from varied sources Sathyanand puts these personalized signs in a surface where they still remain as fragments and refer to their referents and fail /slip in their arbitrariness to give an organic completeness.
“Gigi Scaria’s particular position is to investigate how city structures, social constructs, and the view of location is translated into social prejudice and class attitude.”*( Gayatri Sinha, http://www.gigiscaria.com/writings_1.htm) Gigi has been consistently involved in various projects which attempts at seeing the varied layers of sediments and cultural recording in the urban spaces. He often refers to the famed tower of Babel and its utopic aspirations to construct a structure/complex which promised completeness but was inherently the metaphor of exclusivity and separation/definitions of space according to power.
Prajakta Potnis attempts at transforming the existent being of the objects into something else by reading the secret life of the objects. Her critique has been primarily on the ways space had been ordered in the system. The flimsy binaries of inside outside and other clichés of ordering had been brought down in her installations and sculptures. By creating very pleasing surfaces which are haunting beneath, she questions the general tendency of the middle class viewing which always expects a pleasant and problem-less viewing. Her earlier preoccupation was in revealing/ unearthing the real nature of innocent looking objects and practices like gifts, trophies and prizes. At a more subjective level she says her works “exist between the subjective and the objective worlds( the relationship between the personal and the material),so for me more than a balancing act, it has been about how these two can be depicted at the same time”*(Interview with Anoop Panicker, Soft spoken)
Lavanya Mani’s use of cloth, craft and allied techniques relegated as non art helps her in positioning herself within the dialectics of language where her primary critique has been the colonial ways of seeing, documenting and representing the East. By reading the layers of inscriptions/representations of the colonial past, she creates a palimpsest of images layered with differing and contradictory spatial and temporal viewpoints. “Lavanya does not aim to see her work as the logical conclusion of a historical process. Her attitude to the history of representation is at best navigational, and her artistic process is closer to commentary than interpretation. The success of her images does not depend on stylistic assimilations [an interpretative process], for they do not follow a genealogy of image making. Her images rather precede her chosen genealogy, reversing the route of disseminations, and as a result she helps us see the past without suspending us from the present. It is this projective quality that makes her work so interesting; they work as independent supplements to the already existing archive of the Empire.”* ( Parvez Kabir, History Reserved, History Reversed: the works of Lavanya Mani, Art Concerns)
Here I would again digress a bit and try to remember the famous dance sequence of the film. Since the list of artists kept increasing in due course of the writing I would like to remember the sequence because it also was a sensitively wonderful addition to the overall objective length of the film.
Rakhi Peswani also uses craft and sewing to talk about the self as something fragmented by the onslaught of the informational excess of today. She tries to cohere herself by relating to the process of the craft, sewing etc to find a space of her vision and existence within the overall linguistically cryptic world. She weaves simple texts which question the general nomenclature of these words and unstabilize the meanings by playing around with the varied layers and leaving the material knots open for rethinking.
Ashutosh Bharadwaj uses a detaching technique to avoid his subjectivity intervene in the clichéd mediatic images bombarded on us. His primary attempt has been to expose the artificiality of the simulations by maintaining their character as such as they are received. By creating abstract geometrically accurate designs/spaces and by juxtaposing these mediatic images in their foreground, he generally creates a tension in the act of viewing and thereby questions the claim for authenticity.
Abir Karmakar uses traditional oil techniques of the earlier masters to bring in a peculiar critique about modernity and its thrust on objectivity. One can say he is in a search for a subjective dialogue with his viewer, but never allows them the space to occupy that position. By seducing through his material surfaces and the titillating flesh he teases his viewer as Donald Kuspit quotes Fairbairn and says “Karmakar’s body, then frustrates our desire in the act of arousing it: Karmakar’s work is a tease, more particularly what the British psychoanalyst W.R.D. Fairbairn calls an “exciting object”- an object that promises pleasure but doesn’t deliver.”
Balaji often uses the popular linguistic signs to comment on the issues at large in society. By using text as a very significant element he pokes at grave and strict codes of authority. For quite sometime his preoccupation was with regard to nation and its contemporary representations. His pun seems casual on the layers for their simplicity of direct reference but actually it refers the popu- lar/ list ideologies in circulation.
Remen Chopra’s overlapping canvases bring-in the multiplicity of voices in a simultaneous plane. By thus constructing these cacophonous voices of the multi layered figures on a single plane she offers a simultaneous viewing of these varied views. This is how she tries to break the hierarchies of the act of viewing itself.
Sunoj D’s concerns were largely shaped within the politics of identity and the locale. By portraying his self as a subject of the overarching ideologies and systems he tries to question the systemic disciplining of individuals as subjects or as an indexical number in the bureaucratic coding technicalities.
Ved Gupta attempts through his dwarfed figures, a critique on the crippled bourgeoisie in India. I would also read the figure type of this contemporary fair dwarf bellied bourgeoisie resembling the traditional gods of wealth venerated by the business class in the subcontinent. His comments are verbal and direct to the bourgeoisie who consume everything at their face value.
In talking about the works of Arun Kumar H. G. Anshuman says “All the surfaces are very attractive indeed. His images and their innate critiques are in a state of postponement when one first encounters them. Some of these object/ signs don’t move, literally and metaphorically, as some others do- producing a whirr in the ears, while watching even the apparently innocuous compositions.” (Materiality of the signs: The medley of public images- Anshuman Dasgupta)
Prajakta Palav
“Prajakta Palav Aher paints every detail from a multitude of photographic references that she has archived over the years. The candid medium of photography allows her to unpretentiously penetrate the many aspects of middle class life in India, and capture its varied truths. Although the artist’s portrayals are realistic, they do not come across as documentaries but instead, allow the viewer to realize the disposition of the situations, and find humor in them.”* (http://www.saffronart.com/artist/artistprofile.aspx?artistid=2204&a=Prajakta%20%20Palav%20Aher)
“In 9 min 43 sec Arthur, Odile and Franz broke the record set by Jimmy Johnson of San Francisco”- Goddard narrating the Louvre run.
‘Post Script on recent works’
Or
“We now might open a parenthesis on Odile's, Franz's and Arthur's feelings... but it's all pretty clear. So we close our parenthesis and let the images speak.”
Since due to various technical circumstances as it happens in any plot and there is a delay, I would quickly glance upon the works as they had arrived. Here again I would try to remember the ‘significant scene’ which had added to the progression of the film tremendously where Franz and Arthur wait for Odile behind the factory reading the news papers.
Franz: [Reading the newspaper to Arthur] She treated me like a butler, said the lumberjack, husband of the vanished countess. The police think its murder, but Roger says 'It's an elopement.' Futile search in bedroom slippers.
K.P.Reji’s consistent attempt to bring the politics of our vision which is ideologically tuned/ normalized to neglect and understand the subjective positions of ordinary laboring people finds a poetic scene of love which is but materially grounded in the routinal functions of the laboring people. Sathyanand’s set of photographic prints goes back to the basics of photographic definitions as a technique of drawing with light. He allows/controls the camera to be exposed to the light for a few seconds so that a drawing by itself is created. Sumedh continues his engagement by adding and supplementing his figures with unusual other objects but from the same culture and brings an absurd sense of engrossment in the figures. Lavanya mani and Rakhi Peswani weave in different contexts, the stages of subject formation in the their different selves. Prajakta Palav continues her photography based realistic engagement by painting a night scene which blurs reality and simulation. H.G.Arun Kumar interestingly brings the urban colonization of landscapes, like wise Sunoj’s urbanized ecological concerns are sarcastic about our practices of daily life. Ashutosh’s ‘building bodies’ brings forth the way bodies gets already inscribed even before they are built or they take birth by the various ideologies in circulation. Balaji takes on the bureaucratic political tyranny and tries to see the possibility of protest through the simple act of natural objection in everyday activities of the subjects. The other work “this land belongs to..” is a take on the maddening craze over ownership of land and property. With land being the most reliable source of investment nowadays the race to colonize land and acquire ownership has become the norm of every middleclass dream of growing higher up in the class ladder. Remen Chopra continues to engage with her self through the multilayered surfaces where the different voices are given space to speak out. Abir Karmakar camouflages the male body in the wall paper designs, making apparent the hidden homoerotic fantasies in the interiors of the self. He designs them as wallpapers and thereby metaphorising alienation within the self and the modern spaces of existence. Lokesh khodke reads the politics behind the normalization of beings and the stories/ histories of abnormalcy. By re-presenting the other genders he reads the story of their confiscated memories. Vivek Vilasini parades the kathakali figures in the Western urban landscape. His subversion lies in the actors performance of the famous painting Blind Leading Blind by Bruegel.
Odile: “Think Mr. Stolz would call the police?”
Franz: “Not likely, he stole the money from the Government”
Since the Oedipalizing systemic necessities often try to homogenize the differences which actually nullify resistances by equally promoting passive acceptances on the same plane, there needs to be new ways to counter such attempts. Probably as quoted earlier *( probably there is nothing beyond credos, Santosh S. ) these possibilities lie already within the existing practices and only a carnivalesque reading of these traditional practices themselves could make any text as heteroglossia, thereby contending the official voices with the multitudes of minor voices in every possible manner.
Franz: “isn’t it strange how people never form a whole?”
Odile: “In what way?”
Franz: “They never come together. They remain separate. Each goes his own way, distrustful and tragic. Even when they are together in big buildings or in the street”
And probably in some group endeavors too….
"My story ends here, like in a 'catalogue', at that superb moment when nothing weakens, nothing wears away, and nothing wanes."- Goddard promising to continue the sequel….
V.Divakar
Vadodara
The author would like to thank Rollie Mukherjee, Santhosh Sadanand and Joshil for their suggestions and help in editing the writing.
“Everything that is new is thereby, automatically, traditional”
• Odile translating Eliot in the class room scene.
The imperative to title this essay as “Band of Outsiders” is surely keeping in mind the famous film of Jean-Luc Godard by the same name. I am using the film’s 'script' as a conceptual framework for the show and am using the film itself as a script for structuring my essay. By freely taking some shots/ scenes from the film I would try to put the show in a context relevant to my propositions. Since Godard made this film on the pulp fiction based Hollywood B movies I found it as the most suitable context to write on a show which is being showcased in America. Like the characters in his film the artists in this show are in many ways outsiders other than really being ‘Non-American’! My attempt primarily would be in understanding how some of these artists belong to this category of outsiders within the legitimated contemporary art practice in India. My attempt is also to find a way to be outside the writing in the process of writing this catalogue. Since Godard freed himself from the tyranny of plot in a film by making a film with a similar plot, I would also try to free myself from the tyranny of this ritualistic writing by writing a catalogue of a similar kind.
Arthur: “How much money did she say?
Franz: “A big pile she said”
“May be 40 or 50 wads of bills, Could be 200 million”
“Still I wonder why she told me”
Godard himself didn’t pay much attention to the story which is about two boys (Arthur &Franz) who meet a girl (Odile) at the English class and learn from her that there is a cache of money in the villa where she lives with her aunt and they plan to steal it. Peculiarly Godard is not interested in the question why they are up to it. He never mentions the circumstances which led them to plan the robbery except in a dialogue where Arthur tells “it’s better to be rich and happy than poor and unhappy”. So I would also not concentrate upon the intent of the show, rather I would concentrate only on the artists works put together. Also as Franz tells that he read an American book where it tells that
“Some things are best hidden in full view of everyone”, I would also not mull upon the capital interests which programmes these shows in a broader sense. I would try to investigate the linguistic traits these artists engage with, which may enable us in understanding the concepts and ideas each of the artist deal with. It seems that all of the artists have a discomfort with the reality being represented around them. There is also the possibility that even the dissent itself has been institutionalized by the respective christening forces of the market! Might be there is also the possibility that the stakes being high in the art field, the competence is proved only by rejecting all the consumable inscriptions the surface generally carries along.
‘Here I would not digress anymore on these aspects and let the viewer/ readers decide on those for themselves.’
Franz: If there’s nothing to say, let’s have a moment - a minute of silence.
Odile: you can really be dumb sometimes.
Franz: A minute of silence can be a loooooooooong time. A real minute of silence takes forever.
Parul Dave Mukherji says in her catalogue essay on Sathyanand’s paintings “if one were to characterize contemporary Indian art by a few words, “death”, “dystopia” and “nostalgia” rush to mind. This does not preclude the playful, the aesthetic and the erotic but even the most ebullient, celebratory and ludic are refracted through the lens of unrepresentable…..”* . Also there have been genuine attempts to formulate languages which can articulate/represent the repressed in ways which doesn’t snatch the voice from the represented subjects.
Also one significant thing which has been the single thread linking many of the artists who practice in different parts of the country is their complete obsession with the complexities of urban life . The irony is that this urbanized ideology has been reproduced even in most of the leading art institutes without any amount of skepticism. It is evident by the fact that most of their pedagogical interests are still structured around the westernized colonial frameworks which largely draw back to the Neo-Classicist aesthetical sensibilities. The few art institutes which have tried to come out of this colonial legacy and their counterpart i.e., traditionalist essentialism, through individual subversions in pedagogy couldn’t but resist the strong urban cultural gaze in their art practice. Whatever much publicized re-looking has been done, has subscribed to essentialising or eroticizing the rural (subject) and thereby making it easily consumable for the market forces. Not to mention the newly emerged galleries found enough off season buyers for these traditional souvenirs. It’s a sad situation to tell that barring a few artists, contemporary Indian art/artists have not engaged with the ongoing tragedy of innumerable farmer suicides and the encroachment of state and capitalists machinery that sometimes deprives them of their livelihood. The reason may be that these ‘othered citizens’ don’t make a tasty fodder for the glitz of the media or it doesn’t fit with the international positioning of the Indian state vis-à-vis the art world.
Now having read a brief introduction to the Indian art practice in general I would like to go into more specific details of the artists showcased. I would also like to add to the observation of Parul Dave Mukherji that along with the overwhelming images of dystopia, death and nostalgia there are also very significant attempts to read the already existing spaces within art practice as “other spaces”. If one reads some of the art practice today in India in this light one might probably gather what Parul is mentioning as nostalgia and the dystopic reality are some of the failed utopian dreams. I think many artists have come to terms with the setbacks of certain ‘radical dreams’ and have started working for options within existing spaces of galleries and the other sister/brother bodies. Many have also realized that probably there is nothing beyond credos* and everything is already within the practice only…. This is not to say that they are oedipalized completely within this holy familial structure of market. But they have certainly worked out ways where the tyrannical oedipalizing force is channelised into creative spaces of imagining possibilities.
“Franz had read of an American who took 9min45 sec to visit the Louvre. They decided to do better”
I would like to discuss the works of Vivek Vilasini in this context. On the one hand it suits the hierarchies of organizing the established facets of catalogue writing simply by the virtue of being the senior most among the artists showcased, but on the other hand this criterion alone won’t satisfy my decision to start with a description and interpretation of his work for the simple reason that his works always retain a critical edge in terms of their political engagement. Vivek has critiqued official and tyrannical ideologies with images of sarcasm and everyday pun. His photographs particularly point to the already evident carnivalesque existing in the midst of our everyday life. His famous ‘vernacular chants’, a series of photographs on popular representations of Gandhi completely destabilize the official and elite recognitions of Gandhian ideology and ridicule it with these popular versions where he is venerated even in the form of his adversaries. His other works on the reclamation sites easily questions the meanings/life of these objects in our daily life. They contend by bringing ideologically opposite images like that of Buddha with an imperial eagle or a missile. These disposed reclamation sites expose the hypocrisy and the clash of ideologies in our daily lives which are often unrecognized. He consciously allows the consumption of tradition to critique larger and wider national and international issues. The images of traditional Kathakali though represent a very nativist. exoticised version , Vilasini subverts these images by making them perform contemporary dilemmas and political tensions. He brings in the politics of the locale with all its polyphonic variations.
It is at this point that an artist like K.P.Reji would be very significant to understand the politics of seeing/blindness in the everyday lives*. His images of laboring people engaged in every day acts also destabilize the general notions of our visibility. The images of Reji never allow the subject to be valorized into the imagination of some Others, but they read the laboring subject in his/her position as always becoming something other than his/her assigned self. His unusual spatial delineation which includes the use of architecture actually ridicules the very system which imposes these tyrannical ordering of spaces. Moreover as Santhosh says “by partaking in the politics of everyday life they frontally refuse to produce any space for the middleclass intelligentsia to invest pity and sympathy (to the marginal) and thereby reject the blessings of their political capital.”*(Santhosh.S, The politics of everyday life)
Here I would like to talk about Kiran Subbaiah because his works have always escaped the general notions of art objects. Though working within the sphere of this legitimated art, his works/things/objects have been always questioning our intentions of predetermined viewing. By creating quasi functional absurd objects, he touches upon surrealist tendencies but moves deeper into questions of object’s being within defining structures. His works are directed at objects and, correlatively, upon "objects as they are encountered".
Lokesh Khodke basically locates his protagonists in these middle class spaces. He similarly understands the spatial metaphor by reading the ingrained politics of caste and class from his own subjective position. He reads the contemporary situations in India by remembering the mythological casteist roots of ordering spaces in India. Benoy. P.J observes that “Lokesh’s attempt here does mark an Indian variation to the surrealist language in so far as ‘the originality of surrealism was to have recognized that a society could be founded in which revolt would be accepted as a fundamental principle”. Further he says that “Lokesh’s attempt is original in so far as he takes recourse to the iconic aspect of Indian art to carefully subvert or work around these images”* (Benoy P.J, Beyond Apocalypse;The works of Lokesh Khodke) By reading these as ongoing projects he critiques them from within, by formally destabilizing them with absurd other existences. He brings to fore the casteist inscriptions which forcibly happen over spaces of habitation and also read these within the human body’s sensations.
Since we have touched upon the aspect of surrealism I would now like to discuss the work of Sumedh Rajendran because it questions the existing visual order by breaking the fixed hierarchies of viewing itself. He incoherently puts the fragments together in his sculptural installations breaking all singular notions of truths and thereby about existence. His works often treads the path of absurdity, mutilating organic understanding of wholeness as systematized by the order. Slipping from the definitions of a definitive form, his works often stand on the fringes of the “might be”. Sumedh’s violent sculptures are not formal surfaces of spectacles, but they portray the deep symbolic violence done by the system in the everyday subjective engagements of the subjects.
To continue on this dystopic note the works of sathyanand’s isolated landscapes and the inhibiting half body machinations evidently brings about the metaphors of ruin and death. As Parul says “they mark a death of a personhood, subjectivity and herald a birth of a caricature, of the grotesque, of skulls and skeletons, of automata, of stultified landscapes and frozen rivers and seas.” *( Reliquary, Parul Dvae Mukherji) Taking references from varied sources Sathyanand puts these personalized signs in a surface where they still remain as fragments and refer to their referents and fail /slip in their arbitrariness to give an organic completeness.
“Gigi Scaria’s particular position is to investigate how city structures, social constructs, and the view of location is translated into social prejudice and class attitude.”*( Gayatri Sinha, http://www.gigiscaria.com/writings_1.htm) Gigi has been consistently involved in various projects which attempts at seeing the varied layers of sediments and cultural recording in the urban spaces. He often refers to the famed tower of Babel and its utopic aspirations to construct a structure/complex which promised completeness but was inherently the metaphor of exclusivity and separation/definitions of space according to power.
Prajakta Potnis attempts at transforming the existent being of the objects into something else by reading the secret life of the objects. Her critique has been primarily on the ways space had been ordered in the system. The flimsy binaries of inside outside and other clichés of ordering had been brought down in her installations and sculptures. By creating very pleasing surfaces which are haunting beneath, she questions the general tendency of the middle class viewing which always expects a pleasant and problem-less viewing. Her earlier preoccupation was in revealing/ unearthing the real nature of innocent looking objects and practices like gifts, trophies and prizes. At a more subjective level she says her works “exist between the subjective and the objective worlds( the relationship between the personal and the material),so for me more than a balancing act, it has been about how these two can be depicted at the same time”*(Interview with Anoop Panicker, Soft spoken)
Lavanya Mani’s use of cloth, craft and allied techniques relegated as non art helps her in positioning herself within the dialectics of language where her primary critique has been the colonial ways of seeing, documenting and representing the East. By reading the layers of inscriptions/representations of the colonial past, she creates a palimpsest of images layered with differing and contradictory spatial and temporal viewpoints. “Lavanya does not aim to see her work as the logical conclusion of a historical process. Her attitude to the history of representation is at best navigational, and her artistic process is closer to commentary than interpretation. The success of her images does not depend on stylistic assimilations [an interpretative process], for they do not follow a genealogy of image making. Her images rather precede her chosen genealogy, reversing the route of disseminations, and as a result she helps us see the past without suspending us from the present. It is this projective quality that makes her work so interesting; they work as independent supplements to the already existing archive of the Empire.”* ( Parvez Kabir, History Reserved, History Reversed: the works of Lavanya Mani, Art Concerns)
Here I would again digress a bit and try to remember the famous dance sequence of the film. Since the list of artists kept increasing in due course of the writing I would like to remember the sequence because it also was a sensitively wonderful addition to the overall objective length of the film.
Rakhi Peswani also uses craft and sewing to talk about the self as something fragmented by the onslaught of the informational excess of today. She tries to cohere herself by relating to the process of the craft, sewing etc to find a space of her vision and existence within the overall linguistically cryptic world. She weaves simple texts which question the general nomenclature of these words and unstabilize the meanings by playing around with the varied layers and leaving the material knots open for rethinking.
Ashutosh Bharadwaj uses a detaching technique to avoid his subjectivity intervene in the clichéd mediatic images bombarded on us. His primary attempt has been to expose the artificiality of the simulations by maintaining their character as such as they are received. By creating abstract geometrically accurate designs/spaces and by juxtaposing these mediatic images in their foreground, he generally creates a tension in the act of viewing and thereby questions the claim for authenticity.
Abir Karmakar uses traditional oil techniques of the earlier masters to bring in a peculiar critique about modernity and its thrust on objectivity. One can say he is in a search for a subjective dialogue with his viewer, but never allows them the space to occupy that position. By seducing through his material surfaces and the titillating flesh he teases his viewer as Donald Kuspit quotes Fairbairn and says “Karmakar’s body, then frustrates our desire in the act of arousing it: Karmakar’s work is a tease, more particularly what the British psychoanalyst W.R.D. Fairbairn calls an “exciting object”- an object that promises pleasure but doesn’t deliver.”
Balaji often uses the popular linguistic signs to comment on the issues at large in society. By using text as a very significant element he pokes at grave and strict codes of authority. For quite sometime his preoccupation was with regard to nation and its contemporary representations. His pun seems casual on the layers for their simplicity of direct reference but actually it refers the popu- lar/ list ideologies in circulation.
Remen Chopra’s overlapping canvases bring-in the multiplicity of voices in a simultaneous plane. By thus constructing these cacophonous voices of the multi layered figures on a single plane she offers a simultaneous viewing of these varied views. This is how she tries to break the hierarchies of the act of viewing itself.
Sunoj D’s concerns were largely shaped within the politics of identity and the locale. By portraying his self as a subject of the overarching ideologies and systems he tries to question the systemic disciplining of individuals as subjects or as an indexical number in the bureaucratic coding technicalities.
Ved Gupta attempts through his dwarfed figures, a critique on the crippled bourgeoisie in India. I would also read the figure type of this contemporary fair dwarf bellied bourgeoisie resembling the traditional gods of wealth venerated by the business class in the subcontinent. His comments are verbal and direct to the bourgeoisie who consume everything at their face value.
In talking about the works of Arun Kumar H. G. Anshuman says “All the surfaces are very attractive indeed. His images and their innate critiques are in a state of postponement when one first encounters them. Some of these object/ signs don’t move, literally and metaphorically, as some others do- producing a whirr in the ears, while watching even the apparently innocuous compositions.” (Materiality of the signs: The medley of public images- Anshuman Dasgupta)
Prajakta Palav
“Prajakta Palav Aher paints every detail from a multitude of photographic references that she has archived over the years. The candid medium of photography allows her to unpretentiously penetrate the many aspects of middle class life in India, and capture its varied truths. Although the artist’s portrayals are realistic, they do not come across as documentaries but instead, allow the viewer to realize the disposition of the situations, and find humor in them.”* (http://www.saffronart.com/artist/artistprofile.aspx?artistid=2204&a=Prajakta%20%20Palav%20Aher)
“In 9 min 43 sec Arthur, Odile and Franz broke the record set by Jimmy Johnson of San Francisco”- Goddard narrating the Louvre run.
‘Post Script on recent works’
Or
“We now might open a parenthesis on Odile's, Franz's and Arthur's feelings... but it's all pretty clear. So we close our parenthesis and let the images speak.”
Since due to various technical circumstances as it happens in any plot and there is a delay, I would quickly glance upon the works as they had arrived. Here again I would try to remember the ‘significant scene’ which had added to the progression of the film tremendously where Franz and Arthur wait for Odile behind the factory reading the news papers.
Franz: [Reading the newspaper to Arthur] She treated me like a butler, said the lumberjack, husband of the vanished countess. The police think its murder, but Roger says 'It's an elopement.' Futile search in bedroom slippers.
K.P.Reji’s consistent attempt to bring the politics of our vision which is ideologically tuned/ normalized to neglect and understand the subjective positions of ordinary laboring people finds a poetic scene of love which is but materially grounded in the routinal functions of the laboring people. Sathyanand’s set of photographic prints goes back to the basics of photographic definitions as a technique of drawing with light. He allows/controls the camera to be exposed to the light for a few seconds so that a drawing by itself is created. Sumedh continues his engagement by adding and supplementing his figures with unusual other objects but from the same culture and brings an absurd sense of engrossment in the figures. Lavanya mani and Rakhi Peswani weave in different contexts, the stages of subject formation in the their different selves. Prajakta Palav continues her photography based realistic engagement by painting a night scene which blurs reality and simulation. H.G.Arun Kumar interestingly brings the urban colonization of landscapes, like wise Sunoj’s urbanized ecological concerns are sarcastic about our practices of daily life. Ashutosh’s ‘building bodies’ brings forth the way bodies gets already inscribed even before they are built or they take birth by the various ideologies in circulation. Balaji takes on the bureaucratic political tyranny and tries to see the possibility of protest through the simple act of natural objection in everyday activities of the subjects. The other work “this land belongs to..” is a take on the maddening craze over ownership of land and property. With land being the most reliable source of investment nowadays the race to colonize land and acquire ownership has become the norm of every middleclass dream of growing higher up in the class ladder. Remen Chopra continues to engage with her self through the multilayered surfaces where the different voices are given space to speak out. Abir Karmakar camouflages the male body in the wall paper designs, making apparent the hidden homoerotic fantasies in the interiors of the self. He designs them as wallpapers and thereby metaphorising alienation within the self and the modern spaces of existence. Lokesh khodke reads the politics behind the normalization of beings and the stories/ histories of abnormalcy. By re-presenting the other genders he reads the story of their confiscated memories. Vivek Vilasini parades the kathakali figures in the Western urban landscape. His subversion lies in the actors performance of the famous painting Blind Leading Blind by Bruegel.
Odile: “Think Mr. Stolz would call the police?”
Franz: “Not likely, he stole the money from the Government”
Since the Oedipalizing systemic necessities often try to homogenize the differences which actually nullify resistances by equally promoting passive acceptances on the same plane, there needs to be new ways to counter such attempts. Probably as quoted earlier *( probably there is nothing beyond credos, Santosh S. ) these possibilities lie already within the existing practices and only a carnivalesque reading of these traditional practices themselves could make any text as heteroglossia, thereby contending the official voices with the multitudes of minor voices in every possible manner.
Franz: “isn’t it strange how people never form a whole?”
Odile: “In what way?”
Franz: “They never come together. They remain separate. Each goes his own way, distrustful and tragic. Even when they are together in big buildings or in the street”
And probably in some group endeavors too….
"My story ends here, like in a 'catalogue', at that superb moment when nothing weakens, nothing wears away, and nothing wanes."- Goddard promising to continue the sequel….
V.Divakar
Vadodara
The author would like to thank Rollie Mukherjee, Santhosh Sadanand and Joshil for their suggestions and help in editing the writing.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Fictional Crimes and Criminal Fictions
Internationally acclaimed artist Sheela Gowda, in her latest set of works presented at the SKE Gallery, Bangaluru, speaks about the ‘truth’ of crime and attribution of criminality on people by the state. Taking a victim’s positions she, through her works actively questions the highhandedness of the state, says V.Divakar.
“I prepare to hurl a stone; I am the victim wearing the predator’s clothes, the aggressor. Perhaps my aggressive posture will be enough of an intimidation, it should be, because that is all I have at my disposal against minds that show me that creativity can come in handy even for the devious.”- Sheela Gowda in her artist statement for “Crime Fiction”
"Peoples do not judge in the same way as courts of law; they do not hand down sentences, they throw thunderbolts; they do not condemn kings, they drop them back into the void; and this justice is worth just as much as that of the courts."
- Robespierre put it in his speech in which he demanded the execution of Louis XVI
Acclaimed artist Sheela Gowda had her solo show of artworks in Ske gallery titled “Crime Fiction” from 5th to 27 September, 2008. Known for her subversive use of common materials, “crime fiction” was a multi pronged take on the various discourses around the “crime” as defined by the state.
The normative definition of crime is that of a deviant behavior that violates prevailing norms- cultural standards prescribing how human beings have to behave normally. The act of crime is indeed a complex phenomenon to be pinpointed and defined. Sheela Gowda takes a strategic position as the victim (criminal) thereby questions or rather destabilize the very premise of such definitions of crime. Since crime and criminality is inextricably connected with what is legal as defined by the state, her position as a victim/ criminal gains a political and symbolic significance. By camouflaging herself in the victim’s clothes she is able to destabilize the legality of the state itself.
The diptych “crime fiction” is technically well manipulated work which uses the grains of the news print paper to camouflage the beads. A normal viewing of the work doesn’t allow one to see her intervention. If one takes a deviant anamorphic position alone, one is able to see the glass beads camouflaged in the dark shades of the victim and the entire picture. The print of a women throwing stone is the cloth/surface for the artistic act. As the moth’s wings resemble the snake or the face of the owl, which deflects its predator thereby escapes from being victimized, so is the women’s aggressive posture of throwing stone which the state does to victimize/terrorize the people. Her intervention is in extending upon this act of aggression by the victim and constructing a genealogy of such acts (within representation). As it is natural to produce a defense mechanism by camouflaging with the predators own appearance, so is her (the women’s aggressive posture) a natural defense mechanism against the violence of the predators (here the state and any predatory mechanism against the people) The innumerable beads that are hiding in the texturous news print paper writes the justification of such acts of defense and extends it through “deviant” viewing alone.
“Fake” is a triptych with some abstract designs and some (ill-) legible images with marks and writings. A normal viewing allows us to consume the aesthetically manipulated surface. But once the original source i.e. currency note of the surface is known it collapses such consumption. The abstract designs are the designs which are found in the Indian currency note. The impossibility of faking the note is due to the complexity of the design which is hidden from the normal view. She takes upon this impossibility by not faking it, but by showing the fakeness of the representation in the original itself. Her selection of the last two figures in the march towards freedom led by Gandhi is significant enough to show the fakeness of the original itself. The act of showing and persuading the weaker towards a future, here towards the utopian dream of democracy of people is what is shown as fake or a grand lie.
The history of Indian democracy has shown that the policies and programs of the state apparatuses are against the people by a privileged minority/ majority. The original is itself built upon the fake dream and promise by the state. The more real the promise of democracy more it is a crime for the legality of the state since the more near the ideals of democracy are achieved the more the existing state should wither away. Her manipulation of the surfaces with the colour washes distracts us towards a surfacial consumption. But if we stay to the surface we fall trap to the aesthetic consumption alone. But the secondary meaning (allegorical/political) is in the layers which are hiding within this act of fictional faking. The irreproducibility of the original which gains for its authenticity is itself shown as faked. The grand narratives surrounding the authentic signage (the figures/designs) in the currency are themselves the stimulations of the state to maintain its authenticity.
Line up is another take on the blindness of the state in its legal procedures. She does this notably by giving the artistic act as an analogy to the acts of criminal identification. As the state/ police identify the criminal by scrutinizing closely so does she make us see the subjectivity of the marks on the surface of the totemic/ritualistic/ art objects? As one disposes the marks on the surface of the art object as random/accidental marks forgetting the myriad expressions which bring about the subjectivity of the maker, so does the varied stories and subjectivities of the criminal ignored by the police/state when it identifies the person as just a “criminal”. The close-up photographs are placed in a line next to the raised platform where the totemic figures resembling the famed Stonehenge. The close up and the minimalist sculptures seen together bring problematises “viewing” itself. The abstraction of a concept in general (here criminal) and the marks which establishes the individual subjectivity contest each other according to the position one takes.
“Best cutting” is a drawing over news paper for an attire to be made. The drawing traverses through the varied news of victimization and repression. The cloth would be then made up by the stories of victims which for her are the most strategic one to question the repressor. The famous Patna lynching of the petty thief by the mob and the dragging of him by the police captures our eye and reminds the dreaded act of inhuman legality and excesses involved. Also are the various news reports of religious intolerance and intervening politics. Probably it’s in the story of the victim the probability of resistance lies. The numbness in the coverage of day to day is brought to question by wearing the attire of the same news revelations of victimization in the day to day life of the people. Also is the story of miracles of the divine eye opening and the corresponding responses.
“Loss” is about the loss of utopia, loss of peace and innocence in Kashmir valley where the common day to day life is poisoned by the murders and death by authoritarian systems outside the land. The photographs seem common shots of a village. But beneath it is hidden the cruel tale of the ruthless murder of thousands of innocent lives. The pathway is the path traveled by the dead bodies in their last journey towards the grave. Along with it are the tales of torture and killings of innocent victims. What she does with the prints is to manipulate it with water washes as though they seem to be part of the original picture. The photographic presentation is re-presented with the artistic manipulation. The seemingly natural is actually a closeted peaceful stimulation of gruesome violence which has shattered the peace and belongingness to ones own land.
The entire show takes up resistance as the strategy of survival for the victim. The victim’s voice is justified by her acts of over writing which is not to erase the victims real act of resistance but to reiterate the very act by extending upon that and by creating a lineage of such acts of resistance. Her position in the victim’s cloth is to resist the aggressor’s preying upon by camouflaging in the predators own. Probably the “divine/ subjective violence” of the people is the only alternative against the invisible “systemic violence” which the state pursues daily underneath our eyes.
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