Towards the end of the year 2015, most of us feel the
quickness with which the year has passed right in front of our eyes. Many of us
have not even forgotten the excitement that we had felt or the loneliness that
we had experienced towards the fag end of 2014. We thought 2015 will stay a
little longer but it has faded like a dream from the waking memories of a human
being. This article is not intended to any kind of stock taking, which perhaps
I would do in the coming days. What I really want to talk here is about the
lives of our artists in general. As the years pass by we, the people in the
Indian art scene grow a bit wiser or that is what all of us think that we
should be doing. But are we? In the age of communication technology that grows
leaps and bounds by day and by night, art people too have drifted apart. If
people are sticking together it is just for keeping what is left intact; the
fear of losing it is very evident everywhere. I hardly see a happy artist. Each
one is seeking something that they themselves do not understand. And do they
really find what they have been seeking? In 2008 September, one of the biggest
financial services firm in the US, Lehman Brothers declared itself bankrupt
which sent shockwaves all across the world crashing many markets including the
art market which was in the upswing. It took a couple of years more for the
aftershocks of it to reflect in Indian art market. The brave posturing was over
by 2010 and the complexion of the contemporary art scene completely, perhaps,
irrevocably.
(Young artists at Khoj Peer workshop- image from Khoj website-illustration purpose only)
Five years have passed since then. I have not heard the name
of one single artist who has made a strong impact in our art scene. It does not
mean that the young artists are not working anymore. Somehow they are not
showcased or not even looked at by the promoting agencies. There is a careful
treading on the tight ropes that all these galleries have been walking since
the collapse of the market, rightfully so. Nobody will insist that the
galleries should put stake their wealth in order to promote the career of
unheard and new artists, who once were the toast of the parties during the boom
years. I am told that many have lost faith in the art scene and have migrated
to other fields in order to eke out a living. And one will be surprised to see
that this has happened in a big way in Baroda, which in fact had been the breeding
pond for the gold fish amongst the new artists. Recently I had an opportunity to
talk with a couple of young art students from a very reputed private university
in NOIDA and to my surprise both the kids told me that they did not have any
clue what they would next once they come out of the university as fresh fine
arts post graduates. To my shock, one of them told me that she would perhaps
become a drawing teacher. It is sad that these children are spoon fed with
dreams and high hopes about the kind of art that are basically not skills based
but idea based. They move around in the cutting edge art circles, most of which
are foreign funded and wonder whether they could ever make it in their life
time. The boys and girls coming from small towns to study in big town
universities go back completely confused and dejected.
(Collapse of the Lehman Brother in 2008)
There is no dearth of lip service when it comes to the
saving of the youngsters from some sort of impending doom. Senior artists as
well as the established mid-career artists look almost like saints par
excellence when they speak about the plights of the younger generation and
their intention to help them out to do something. But it is quite human that
nobody would make space for the youngsters unless and until they prove their
worth and catch the space away from the already established ones. Look at the
Indian cinema, both in Bollywood and in the regional cinema you could see still
the market is ruled by the fifty plus artists. They are not going to make space
for the younger lot; in fact there is a hidden competition between them. In the
Indian art scene too, we see the lack of promotion for the younger lot from the
senior and established ones. And expecting them to promote the youngsters is
also not so ethical because the seniors and established ones have come to that
place or come to occupy that space through sheer grit and hard work. Are the
young generation artists ready to do that? The fact is most of the youngsters
take a short cut. I have seen a few talented artists shifting the course to
become performance artists and cutting edge artists. There is no problem if somebody
becomes a performance artist. But the problem is whether the existing hierarchy
within that genre of art would ever allow him or her to grow bigger and carve
out his or her space in that field?
(India Art Fair)
In my view, there are three kinds of young artists (I am
just keeping the established youngsters out of this discussion); one, the
artists who are terribly conventional and even when they are in big cities
prefer to maintain their regional and small town identities. Two, the artists
who are extremely cosmopolitan and highly visible in the cutting edge art
circuits. Three, the artists who have had shows during the boom time but still
are not in the success bracket and they too are very much visible. When 2015 is
going to come to a close, I am really curious about the fate of these three
different kinds of artists. The first lot is definitely going to survive
because they are not really there for a competition or conquest. They just want
to survive as artists and if they could manage to sell a few works every year
they are happy with it. They do not have any problem to operate from a remote
Jharkhand town or from Mumbai or Delhi. The second lot is full of those artists
who want to be at the right place at the right time and to be with the right
kind of people so that they feel good about what they are doing. May be this is
a process of growing up in the big cities’ dirty art climate. There must be a
fair amount seasoning happening in this. But unfortunately, these artists are
heard only through certain channels and also not for their works but for their
being there. The third lot is the most pathetic lot. They have had their share
glory and page three space during the boom time. They were seen and shown with
the happening and established artists but today they are just left on the way
side. The bus has gone but they are still waiting. What distinguishes the third
lot from the second lot is our ability to recognize them by face or name while
the second lot largely remains obscure.
(Why can't they be the new patrons of art with the trap of 1990s. picture for illustration only)
This is a very sad state of affair. The galleries, though I
have exempted them from the responsibility of promoting the second and the
third lot of artists, there should be some kind of a social responsibility to
be shown by these galleries. The galleries are real weathervanes. Depending on
what is sold they change their track. Not a single gallery could stand away
from this blame. Fortunate are those galleries that have already established
their position as agencies that promote only a minimum set of artists. We
cannot complaint about them. They may be working with maximum ten artists or a
bit more permutations and combinations with other galleries for the business
sake. As they have taken that position, nobody can point a finger at them
because what they would like to promote, they promote it with a lot of focus.
But there is a medium level of galleries (they are more in number) that enjoy
the good will of both the specialist galleries and the ‘commercial galleries’
at the lower rung alike. These medium level galleries promote all what is
fashionable and they would drop the artists like hot potatoes during the time
of adversities. It is literally crime. Either you should not pick up all and
sundry or you stick to all those artists you have taken on board, giving them
chances on a rotational basis. These galleries behave so funnily; if someone
says this or that curator is good, they all will run behind that curator, if
someone says this or that medium is catching up, they will go behind that and
all these times, they remain in limelight and enjoy good will as serious
galleries because the interests of the serious galleries are also partially
served by these medium level galleries. During the last ten years we have seen
curators from different countries coming here doing shows from Kochi to Kashmir
and all the places fall in between and disappearing forever. We have seen
curators displaying works of art on the ceiling even just for the heck of it
(or they say that’s the new way of seeing art. I wonder whether these curators
would ever display a work at the ceiling in their homes) and vanishing into
thin air. We have seen galleries suddenly going retro and rural. But all have
done injustice to the art scene in India.
(from an auction. Picture for illustration only)
What could be done? I believe we need to wake up to a dawn
of new age art patronage. The high end galleries and the auction houses have
proved beyond doubt that they are here for the ageing and dead artists. They
are here for auctioning the vintage. They are here for auctioning the weight of
history created by the life and times of the artists around his or her works.
If you really look at the names and works of these artists who periodically
appear in the auctions and reap phenomenal prices, we understand that they have
never been in the success bracket till their very ripe age. Lucky are those who
have managed a decent and dignified life during their younger days. And also we
should see the emerging pattern of these auctions. There seems to be a workshop
in heaven where all the dead artists are still working at the behest of the
collectors and dealers down here. So we do not know when this incessant stream
of works of the moderns would ever end if at all it should. The emerging
pattern shows that these people pick and choose those artists who have reached
certain age. As far as the auction houses are concerned, whatever you say, it
is history, only history that makes sense. So what about the young and the
established mid-career artists? They should really work or their lives should
be cut short. Which one would you prefer?
(Shall it be applicable to art too?)
I am sure that most of the artists would prefer to live and
work even if it is a bit cumbersome. The very idea of success in the art market
should change and also a new age patronage should evolve. The developing
stories tell us that artists are not really sublime characters. However, we
have to make sure that the artists should live and work and they should live a
dignified life and work decently. They need patronage. That means the new and
emerging rich class should look around through their eyes not really using the
help of the galleries as the only way to reach out to the right kind of art,
and see a lot of artists who need support. The rich class should not think
(unlike in the late 1990s) they are investing in art. Instead they should think
that they are participating in the making of art and culture of this fast
developing country. Over the social media interfaces and other connecting
platforms, they could come across a lot of interesting artists and art works.
This takes a lot of resolution and sense of responsibility and pride. What we
need is the will power to promote art. I am not saying that there should be an
effort though not organized, to undercut the role of the galleries. Let the
galleries function or reform their functioning in the emerging scenario of new
age patronage. It is possible. But only thing that I want to warn is that
sourcing works of art over internet could be a bit tedious and less satisfying.
It is where they need to look at the writings of the art critics and art
writers, who would be following the artists sincerely and writing about them.
Just do not believe the so called art consultants who by virtue of their wealth
and access have made a career out of sophistication than real knowledge. When
Mr.Modi speaks of Make in India, we need to see the real message behind it
beyond the ideological issues. We should be proud of the art ‘made in India’
both in thinking and in executing. It should not be a western import as it has
been for a long time. And also the skills of the Indian artists should not be left
unused by favoring too much of conceptual art. We need both conceptual and
skills based art. There should be a day when both skill and concept would go
hand in hand in the Indian art scene and the world will sit up and take a note
of the emerging Indian art.
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