tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88721465591189359392024-03-13T17:01:29.629+05:30By All Means NecessaryJohnyMLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854530824953334475noreply@blogger.comBlogger1111125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8872146559118935939.post-29173183875002670302024-02-05T16:52:00.002+05:302024-02-05T16:52:43.128+05:30White Cube Versus Colorful Walls: Galleries and Changing Visual Experiences <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNwr6-JQmEHwVXOeMPgpudRRiZ-VksUk2kfuV6F66PMK3ROsjbQBw0kcS3IR9ccYifdOD-RZHd_AqEJnuPtiE4yNrxAlxvKxQwsYQsaIMWmwWpuxiAybO9Bw0WOfHzygozCGAdBkralpy60r8VOhQ2mORQhyPAHUMkD78SpcTxtB0YlASr3riNIzVxa8E/s1600/gallery%20walls%205.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNwr6-JQmEHwVXOeMPgpudRRiZ-VksUk2kfuV6F66PMK3ROsjbQBw0kcS3IR9ccYifdOD-RZHd_AqEJnuPtiE4yNrxAlxvKxQwsYQsaIMWmwWpuxiAybO9Bw0WOfHzygozCGAdBkralpy60r8VOhQ2mORQhyPAHUMkD78SpcTxtB0YlASr3riNIzVxa8E/s320/gallery%20walls%205.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>(Image courtesy: Net)<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">White, as far as galleries are concerned, is not a
racial index. Ironically, it stands for neutrality. It reflects all lights, all
thoughts and all visual engagements. It separates the work of art displayed against
it from the surroundings and the possible attributes that enhance or affect the
meaning of the work during focused and dispassionate contemplation by the
viewer. Perhaps, viewer is exempted from this discourse for he or she is just
another attribute to the art galleries and events. The contemplation of art these
days, is mostly done by art buyers, dealers, collectors and auction house
personalities. That justifies the scheduling of events during an art do; previews
before views and VIP previews before the open doors for art ‘people’.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The color white and the conventional rectangular
spaces have been the reasons for calling the galleries white cubes, though cube
is just a euphemism for squares with varying angles. Such designated gallery
spaces replicate the idea of modernist grand narratives. The space almost determines
the viewers’ attitudes and their kinetic orientations within it. Unlike in the
large scale museums where people audibly express their surprise before masterly
works, exchange art historical anecdotes, the overlapping narratives of the
live guides who conduct the flock of visitors through halls and the gleeful
noises that the children make, the white cube galleries hush the people up with
their sanitized interiors. Galleries, more than museums become stringent
civilizing agents in this way and visiting a gallery becomes a civilizing
ritual, if I rephrase Carol Duncan’s argument a bit. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqDs5G-a_9dNDtg5RG8HzJ9YhPfLfrtYLgPuJ6ET6MsR1q9tVqjzjyI_8-TOVziWZL08ZfZdF-tJ11dsU9SILtSmtWaxyFK13-IWz1cWeEHb4PGmG94nmfHgiJzmGncfhx_hhCsVcwWNlX0xDjkfslRH1LF3GAKnd4jsFCvlCzXaxIiRMLFhvGiUK7l_A/s1024/gallery%20walls%204.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="683" data-original-width="1024" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqDs5G-a_9dNDtg5RG8HzJ9YhPfLfrtYLgPuJ6ET6MsR1q9tVqjzjyI_8-TOVziWZL08ZfZdF-tJ11dsU9SILtSmtWaxyFK13-IWz1cWeEHb4PGmG94nmfHgiJzmGncfhx_hhCsVcwWNlX0xDjkfslRH1LF3GAKnd4jsFCvlCzXaxIiRMLFhvGiUK7l_A/s320/gallery%20walls%204.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;">(Image courtesy: Net)</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Breaking away from the white cubes was a way of the
artists who rebelled against the grand narratives of modernism and they thought
that these sanitized grand structures were commodifying interfaces. Those
artists who went into the making of conceptual art using poor materials, emerging
technologies and their own corporeal bodies discarded organized white cube
spaces and propped up their interventionist practices in impromptu spaces or in
the spaces that were ready to create ruptures in the conventional art making
and viewing. Immateriality and temporality became the defining status of the works
of art that broke down materiality and object experiences and converted them
into conceptual experimentations. Art being an expression through a medium,
materiality couldn’t have been wished away completely. Hence, artists went for
abject materials that evoked aesthetical revulsion initially followed by
intellectual deliberations. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">However, white cubes are structures that never say die.
They are determined spaces with assumed fluidity with the arrival of a vigorous
art market. Had it been once a place for dispassionate contemplation without external
influences or distractions, later it became a space that could replicate interiors
of elite habitats virtually, interestingly, by adding certain distractions to
the very viewing space. It was done through certain minimal touches of change
and major tweaking of the viewers’ consciousness and conscience. Galleries changed
the ambience of their interiors by changing the nature of light, darkening the
interiors to create light spots that highlighted the works, drowning the
surroundings in utter darkness. It came as an offshoot of video art but became
a fad in general display even. The white cubes came masquerading as dark
caverns, making the viewing or art an exploration or expedition through an unchartered
land. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5GL1iikvQJ5srhL7m1uV7cm-pfQKn4Ul_Dv8ShXrDUPltMNYtrJ2EFuC_h5Te9dwlMn6IUIyUT4D8pQIa371nZQ08muQ94D9m2B9WrivW84SGd8E3CR_tINx2EwpvGGNJNbDyIZXxYM0cpvU5ooYED_cKTRxZ-qKZbCEgTTNVzgmHVjrx6iNHCu8qciQ/s900/gallery%20wall%202.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="603" data-original-width="900" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5GL1iikvQJ5srhL7m1uV7cm-pfQKn4Ul_Dv8ShXrDUPltMNYtrJ2EFuC_h5Te9dwlMn6IUIyUT4D8pQIa371nZQ08muQ94D9m2B9WrivW84SGd8E3CR_tINx2EwpvGGNJNbDyIZXxYM0cpvU5ooYED_cKTRxZ-qKZbCEgTTNVzgmHVjrx6iNHCu8qciQ/s320/gallery%20wall%202.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;">(Image courtesy: Net)</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The determined spaces with certain square feet of
display area with a familiar layout to the regular visitors suddenly became
confusing labyrinths where navigation turned out to be an experience in itself
rather than the works of art exhibited on walls or floors or screens. The
breaking down of grand narratives became another set of obscure narratives that
needed physical and mental unpacking at once. If the white cubes were an offshoot
of a colonial discourse, the navigational challenges now posed by the galleries
by changing lights, layouts and wall colors became an imperialist offensive
that demanded subservience, unquestioned acceptance and never ending awe from
the viewers. The white cubes, once the temples of civilizing rituals and grand
narratives are now the theme parks with mindboggling roller-coaster rides. The
attention of the viewers is taken away from the machine that took them to
gut-wrenching movements, instead they are meant to focus on the exhilaration
that that the movements impart. Often it turns out to be a para-jumping with a
malfunctioning parachute. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Colored walls of a gallery, taken positively, are a pleasant
distraction from, as one of the artists would put it, ‘the usual drab of ‘the’ white’.
They do accentuate the presence of the works on display so long as they remain
subdued. But the screaming colors, indiscreet daubing of all what are available
in the color chart of a paint-maker, absorb the works the way a cunning croc
would do to unsuspecting thirsty lambs. The Poppins candy like walls in a
gallery may be a fun thing for the first timers but for the seasoned ones,
besides the visual titillation, it offers nothing but a terrible sense of
discomfort. Someone wearing gaudy suits may be interesting to look at for once
but a pack of such buddies processioning through a narrow street would make one
think of a harlequins’ carnival. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqMYmQf1sP7AjePpFJV71t_WuZlT47Dl56Sktvkcg6qBvTKqA-0U1rrZmAqx7Gbw7W41-e09GG66SJ6A7HCBfR-38HMzJ1xWaRp2yXKZ0qycYq3pm_Dd_ak0vFL2AKHzi7n2gDIo3t7CEOW7_nTn0xQmIGpCgh_dMLL5Ip1tn_xIUzWnINuPUKN9-bSjg/s1066/galelry%20walls%203.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1066" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqMYmQf1sP7AjePpFJV71t_WuZlT47Dl56Sktvkcg6qBvTKqA-0U1rrZmAqx7Gbw7W41-e09GG66SJ6A7HCBfR-38HMzJ1xWaRp2yXKZ0qycYq3pm_Dd_ak0vFL2AKHzi7n2gDIo3t7CEOW7_nTn0xQmIGpCgh_dMLL5Ip1tn_xIUzWnINuPUKN9-bSjg/s320/galelry%20walls%203.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;">(Image courtesy: Net)</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">White cube is old fashioned now, many think so. Adding
hues to the walls does make some impact of on the viewing experience. However,
thinking of it, a work of art, if it is done in a conventional medium, has to
be seen in a neutral space, devoid of particular physical contexts. The neutral
spaces function as crucibles for the contexts to flow in virtually. It doesn’t
mean that the museums and galleries have to stick to white surfaces. There
could be colored walls, heavily decked up frames exuding the glories of royalty.
But a gallery space is a space where royalty is an aspiration but not a given
reality. It is meant to be a class-less, caste-less and color-less space.
Treating adjacent walls in jarring colors doesn’t really enhance the quality of
the works. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">-JohnyML <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>JohnyMLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854530824953334475noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8872146559118935939.post-42607199090351017342023-12-01T16:13:00.002+05:302023-12-01T16:13:29.855+05:30Blinding Visual Silence of Artists from Kerala and Elsewhere During the Gaza Crisis<p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9zGMD5l8j6fzNYWKZrpiN-6YQ8xEqDHDg-ZZiTrYXGGr91nmFSaKcRnuEQINASnoeV3SgJJsCVZkfFnCb8iUxfuPspJSG3lwGAyRPXy-3HsmV9Hh864O2SxPPDMV5kxncF7fPPk4P52WRHzvVvwdORAx0FNujdP53cs7TXQdBmiQMPGCGOMSWsx_szt8/s1484/Gaza%201.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="958" data-original-width="1484" height="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9zGMD5l8j6fzNYWKZrpiN-6YQ8xEqDHDg-ZZiTrYXGGr91nmFSaKcRnuEQINASnoeV3SgJJsCVZkfFnCb8iUxfuPspJSG3lwGAyRPXy-3HsmV9Hh864O2SxPPDMV5kxncF7fPPk4P52WRHzvVvwdORAx0FNujdP53cs7TXQdBmiQMPGCGOMSWsx_szt8/s320/Gaza%201.webp" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">(Work by Banksy in Gaza)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">Art is the
child of its circumstances. Art could happen in isolation but the resultant
work is always a product of its own physical and intellectual environments.
Sometimes, art tend to hide its real intentions in order divert the attention
of the authorities or resort to some other methods of expression so that the
censors find them passable, harmless and innocent. Such clever display of
harmlessness, when passed through time sheds its hood and show the real face.
It becomes an object with telltale evidences of the time in which it was born.
It also tells the story of the artist who has caused it. It is irrelevant whether
the artist has left some journals and anecdotes in order to connect the dots or
not. Whatever unsaid in art is chiseled out by time, if someone in that
projected time takes interest in the said piece of art object. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">A question
sent by one of my Facebook friends caused this preamble. He asked, requesting anonymity,
why artists from Kerala and elsewhere have not yet responded to the Gaza War
through their works. Yes, in such events that shake up human conscience artists,
irrespective of their land of origin find seeds for their art. They react to it
the way Picasso had reacted to the bombing at the Basque town of Cadacaus.
Picasso’s response is now in everybody’s mind and it is called ‘Guernica’. It
has become such a landmark work that ever since the artists from world over
when they responded to an atrocity or calamity, extracted symbols from this
huge painting and employed them in their works to express their angst. But
Picasso is now seen as a ‘modernist’ whose grand narratives existed within certain
intellectual monoliths, in other words, it is old, odd and stereotypical. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfvsvpAsOPvyDL0VfBdHNGOg-6dwTf6YCXNezsk97uj3O1-wKoRoDjR9S2lQ13Aa5KrJDXFzgnFbVOWn_No9Iq5jpulv4c9yzChcJyW7FaRsA8VgeJM28WauXd3YZalQU8_EENQSlbD0o4nl8aCwfy8m0A-0n3uHJasC0BeksTvLi1C6jN92-LivxMui0/s860/Screenshot_20231201-144433~2%20(1).png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="699" data-original-width="860" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfvsvpAsOPvyDL0VfBdHNGOg-6dwTf6YCXNezsk97uj3O1-wKoRoDjR9S2lQ13Aa5KrJDXFzgnFbVOWn_No9Iq5jpulv4c9yzChcJyW7FaRsA8VgeJM28WauXd3YZalQU8_EENQSlbD0o4nl8aCwfy8m0A-0n3uHJasC0BeksTvLi1C6jN92-LivxMui0/s320/Screenshot_20231201-144433~2%20(1).png" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;">(Question sent by a friend)</span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">Whenever
there is a crisis in the world that brought humans to despicable states of
existence and several innocent lives are lost for no reason of their own, the
abjection and revulsion that the artists feel in their minds come out as works
of art which is generally called protest art. Sometimes protest art register a
protest and sometimes they invite world’s attention to the crisis. The more is
the fame of the artist the more is the traction of his or her message through
the protest art. Of late Banksy, the anonymous artist from London, whose works,
ironically are sold for millions of dollars (no other anonymous artist is sold for
such obscene prices so far), had involved in the Israel-Palestine crisis by
landing in the crisis ridden areas and painting pictures of hope (often with
children as protagonists, a clever ploy to get the attention of the people),
which, it was reported that, were lifted by art dealers and their agents for
post-war commerce elsewhere. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">Protest Art
is sometimes dubbed as reactionary art. The negative connotation weighs down on
the real intention of such art. Reactionary art can be just naïve and hypocritical
but all kinds of protest art are not necessarily so. Protest art too needs a positive
environment to flourish. Where totalitarian regimes are in place or state
censorship is rampant artists do not dare to make protest art that challenge
the authority. Art that has the critical edge and has the ability to dare the
authorities may go underground and anonymous (exactly the way Banksy had
started off in late 1980s in England) in such situations. Result; a lot of
graffiti in the city walls, posters, performances, videos and secretly shared
documents and images.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyi0NfcdfSBdSmYeywrTGXimtgoddFTkRwkplQVD88L2iRip3zyNmJaBKvodgWZrpjy1cWmCC5j2LeFx-1SoMgWIvcoGHah2FB_lDV6Z_wQnaR1S5fwo_A1atvxFgFNyOqe0rOrEJLxpdSsjvXWlmaSej_LdNY7OV2sT_4qNlmykv9I2NaGu6WGY4IAf4/s2560/Gaza%203.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1707" data-original-width="2560" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyi0NfcdfSBdSmYeywrTGXimtgoddFTkRwkplQVD88L2iRip3zyNmJaBKvodgWZrpjy1cWmCC5j2LeFx-1SoMgWIvcoGHah2FB_lDV6Z_wQnaR1S5fwo_A1atvxFgFNyOqe0rOrEJLxpdSsjvXWlmaSej_LdNY7OV2sT_4qNlmykv9I2NaGu6WGY4IAf4/s320/Gaza%203.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;">(Ai Wei Wei)</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">Today, it
is not difficult to trace the origins of a graffiti and underground art. With
the presence of AI controlled CCTVs and other surveillance mechanisms,
authorities could zero in on the artists and if need be, curtail them from such
activities by imprisoning or slapping sanctions on them. Ai Wei Wei is a best
example of such artists who dared the one party ‘democracy’ of China and got
incarcerations in return. All the artists are not Banksys or Ai Wei Weis. It
takes a lot of guts to speak up and a dare the authorities. During the times of
peace, one could talk about the war times and express angst against atrocities
of wars one’s heart’s content. But in the war time, especially when the
authorities are on the side of the perpetrator, the artists cannot speak for
the victims. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">It is not a
rule though. In the present context, though India has lately condemned the
ongoing war in Gaza and pummeling of the Arab citizens by the Israeli forces and
the Arab retaliations, one does not know whether the Indian authorities really
entertain artists in India speaking on behalf of the Hamas, the Arab extremists
who fights for the freedom of Palestine. Though there are writers,
intellectuals and journalists speak against Indian authorities for siding with
the Israel, their reactions are contained by the counter narratives rampant in
the official, unofficial and citizen media. Art is slightly different in that
case. Words can be responded with words. Art’s power cannot be responded with
another kind of art, especially when the artist who has done the powerful
protest art is famous like Ai Wei Wei or Bansky who have an international
standing. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA5l2PLo5Q7SHYtxBf8N3nyPtaYojk75kStZiRQUb5Ux7c7BTc0e2lAn-JuQiUWkRE4hHHZ9nL8ONsbLRc2-ylvlj_tp_h7f2nxl7PwxLXc_DPrJlCTefVj34Qyj4MAIVUZ1JbnXy30nin3PL-BYWP52eKs6A1jkglPkuvYJyDZCtKF30CYqhcZR-4cHg/s1440/Gaza%205.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="958" data-original-width="1440" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA5l2PLo5Q7SHYtxBf8N3nyPtaYojk75kStZiRQUb5Ux7c7BTc0e2lAn-JuQiUWkRE4hHHZ9nL8ONsbLRc2-ylvlj_tp_h7f2nxl7PwxLXc_DPrJlCTefVj34Qyj4MAIVUZ1JbnXy30nin3PL-BYWP52eKs6A1jkglPkuvYJyDZCtKF30CYqhcZR-4cHg/s320/Gaza%205.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;">(Work by Ai Wei Wei)</span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">Whenever the
issue of censorship has come up for public debate, we have talked about
self-censorship as a ploy to hoodwink the authorities. During the rise of the
Nazis in Germany, many a German Expressionist had resorted to allegories and
metaphors that did not speak of the Nazis but spoke of the totalitarian rulers
and authorial fallacies culled up from the vast repository of European literature
including that of Shakespeare. When India was under the rule of non-BJP
regimes, artists spoke of the local, national and international crises through their
art. Now, with regimes showing totalitarian traits both in the center and
state, artists do a lot of self-censorship. Look at the kind of art that is produced
in Kerala, where there is a thriving art scene. They produce such art that does
say a lot about the land that they live, the abstract ideas expressed through
forms and a lot of concern for environment. There is a joke doing rounds in the
art scene; when there was a crisis in the tribal belt of Vayanadu, in Kerala,
it was easy to paint the crisis in Kashmir or Palestine. A child died of hunger
in Kerala is neglected while Alan Kurdi, the Kurdish toddler died in the Mediterranean
seashore is a talking point for the artists in Kerala. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJUtVs-9XQMuD6_9jSRs0FcQX1ZnNsyqjuTN9rmJ1E3Uq4soTK6Q3e_gXvARkbE0aEXtIH8qBN9tdB3SzHcwr_nC2_GB4cGyE2cioUchTbVfcPQKnMX-hA8zDRQArNu6H8EfEAPHEHFpdP0UgV9RXquZAFxnHClp7xXL84g9YpZsgEAT_Wj7Uf5PGogEI/s660/Gaza%204.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="495" data-original-width="660" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJUtVs-9XQMuD6_9jSRs0FcQX1ZnNsyqjuTN9rmJ1E3Uq4soTK6Q3e_gXvARkbE0aEXtIH8qBN9tdB3SzHcwr_nC2_GB4cGyE2cioUchTbVfcPQKnMX-hA8zDRQArNu6H8EfEAPHEHFpdP0UgV9RXquZAFxnHClp7xXL84g9YpZsgEAT_Wj7Uf5PGogEI/s320/Gaza%204.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;">(Alan Kurdi)</span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">Artists in
Kerala may be afraid of the totalitarian regimes. Or they may be doing
self-censorship. Even if both are not the case, then they may be speaking
through metaphors. One cannot say for sure. What is sure is this that protest
art is Kerala and elsewhere has become a part of city beautification projects,
funded by the authorities and promoted by the mainstream curators and art
promoters. We are as well as they are now spellbound. We need to wait for the
spell to wither off. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">-JohnyML</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>JohnyMLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854530824953334475noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8872146559118935939.post-24825473953274513022023-11-30T14:57:00.003+05:302023-11-30T14:57:51.634+05:30When Someone Places Curio Shops over Art Galleries and Works of Art<div class="xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk6LHYW1KApR1g1-wVNrUwWye8otGpOor9qrW8cI7DEFAXSO0DR-rpx7CVdKxe_VV_hm61VIjzlWn9Xg_VY08-euGJ6CP_z8kHVQUZ5bflngKtKI3yqMmfxJHRNfofmpQ8buwYk3p3Hj9-cNf9S3XMr4gEmwxLhrK9Mga5gd92a1sPZ-lpAFIIHmn36FU/s1080/Screenshot_20231130-144152~2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="973" data-original-width="1080" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk6LHYW1KApR1g1-wVNrUwWye8otGpOor9qrW8cI7DEFAXSO0DR-rpx7CVdKxe_VV_hm61VIjzlWn9Xg_VY08-euGJ6CP_z8kHVQUZ5bflngKtKI3yqMmfxJHRNfofmpQ8buwYk3p3Hj9-cNf9S3XMr4gEmwxLhrK9Mga5gd92a1sPZ-lpAFIIHmn36FU/s320/Screenshot_20231130-144152~2.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;">(Screenshot of a message sent to me by a senior woman artist)</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Yesterday I was asked by a visitor to the exhibition why should he pay so much more for “an art piece“ when he could get something better finished and “finer” for a few hundred rupees from curio shops. He had also visited an exhibition at Fine arts college and could not see why youngsters should waste their time and talent making things out of “muck” and scrap. I did a poor job of explaining. Hope when you <span style="font-family: inherit;"><a style="color: #385898; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit;" tabindex="-1"></a></span>have time to spare you can write something for clearing such doubts.”</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">When I got this message in my inbox, from a reputed woman artist, what came to my mind instantly was the shallow understanding about art that people still carried in their minds. It reminded me of the statement that often people make when they see some masters’ works that apparently look naïve and child-like; hey, what is the big deal. Even my child could do this. Why does it take a great man/woman to do this stuff? The answer given to such bravado often ekes out stereotypical answers from the informed; yes, then why don’t you or your children do it? </span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">This man does not differ much from such cynical people. Perhaps, he was not particularly sarcastic or condescending. He was just being real there! His idea about art lies something around a ‘finished’ product, something very Aristotlean, imitation of nature. While looking at the works of art that do not confirm his ideas about art as mimicking the objects and concepts, he feels that they are not up to the mark. And he does see a lot of art that are polished, finished, rounded and confirming to the commonly held ideas about art as mimicry.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZSrkQtbPUMA23R_de2TPGntMvCsvchhAqToMdV7GgR33cK4dWfMMDHt5oj2Bu4s-Y1LbmkGa3pVAc4qoTGdjQDl3pvKNFeFvTA4GbF2ZCwQheos3SW4AnygBmRzXmefIqZIW9R3MayOZbhATEdYDYCxmumhMFHfufI5uzPw0LCmBv9jEFoXgTaowNUdY/s474/Aristotle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="344" data-original-width="474" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZSrkQtbPUMA23R_de2TPGntMvCsvchhAqToMdV7GgR33cK4dWfMMDHt5oj2Bu4s-Y1LbmkGa3pVAc4qoTGdjQDl3pvKNFeFvTA4GbF2ZCwQheos3SW4AnygBmRzXmefIqZIW9R3MayOZbhATEdYDYCxmumhMFHfufI5uzPw0LCmBv9jEFoXgTaowNUdY/s320/Aristotle.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;">(Aristotle) </span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">However, this Aristotlean understanding of mimesis has a problem because the conceptualization of mimicry, while taking nature into consideration, obliterates culture from its discursive ken. Culture, as we understand today is the cumulative manifestations of the lives that people lived so far on the face of the earth. The early art did not confirm the ideas of mimesis though our ancestors were trying to imagine and execute the events, participants and objects exactly the way they had perceived them. They were trying to confirm but the confirmation needed more conceptual orientations and scientific understanding and overall development of brains that facilitated the accumulation of skills required to do sophisticated images and objects as we see today. </span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">It too may take years for the human beings to arrive at the exact mimicry of nature in their creative expressions. They literally wanted the reflecting surfaces such as mirror and lenses in order to capture images and express them in verisimilitude. Imitation reflected truth and surface value was important for verifying the exactitude of that truth. The western thinking developed mostly around the Greek School of thought etched indelible marks in the minds of the people all over the world about the idea of exactitude, irrespective of the cultural variations chosen by the people in different continents, countries and regions. The western thought therefore moved around the existence of a complete body, a perfect body and an unblemished body that became the fundamental measure of beauty, truth and aesthetical as well as social acceptance. </span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Joseph Kosuth, taking directly on the Aristotlean idea of mimesis and also the Platonic idea of ideal form, produced a conceptual work of art titled One and Three Chairs, 1965, where he placed a chair on the floor, a photograph of a chair on the wall and a detailed dictionary definition on the wall adjacent to the photograph. The question was, which one is the ‘real’ chair there? Is it the wooden chair? If so, are all the chairs same in design and material? Is the picture, a chair? Or the definition of it? Between the concept, text and image, and even the object there is a chasm that has to be filled with ideas, culture and related discourses. </span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8yWzFang5cd-QqGvwv5SYMGFDLQ_ow3AF6nP5RAFCtR2KhDR6TouvYRvnhgtWi9Xt5dFcPJbrw4FPy7kxQBAjprbDHEp9xrBmDUiif_64tuf5zkwvuLQXeKW0SDU6JZ_KhT71zRfFCnrFguOp6Qy84oa3V90Z-uvB-gnojArF796e7TqEVzHq8yJPrCY/s1012/Kosuth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="850" data-original-width="1012" height="269" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8yWzFang5cd-QqGvwv5SYMGFDLQ_ow3AF6nP5RAFCtR2KhDR6TouvYRvnhgtWi9Xt5dFcPJbrw4FPy7kxQBAjprbDHEp9xrBmDUiif_64tuf5zkwvuLQXeKW0SDU6JZ_KhT71zRfFCnrFguOp6Qy84oa3V90Z-uvB-gnojArF796e7TqEVzHq8yJPrCY/s320/Kosuth.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;">(One and Three Chairs- by Joseph Kosuth)</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit;"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">The man who came to see the shows and raised those questions himself is a confused person who needs a thorough education and experience in looking at and understanding the works of art, not only the ones that he sees in the galleries but also the ones that have become part of the history which are available through online and offline sources. The questions, thought cynical and sarcastic in sound and delivery, are good questions. That is one juncture where one start thinking about one’s own concepts about art and the works of art that are available for his consumption. He can get a finished product from a curio shop which would satisfy his aesthetical needs for the time being but once he is a regular visitor to the exhibitions, if he has a probing mind and ability to understand, he </span></span><span style="color: #050505; font-family: Segoe UI Historic, Segoe UI, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">will</span></span><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit;"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"> definitely change his ideas on the nature of art. </span></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit;"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">Young artists are a different lot always. They are the people who respond to the world in a radical and new fashion compared to the old people whose eyes and brains are tuned to the fundamentals of life whatever changes take place in the material world. Hence, even if newer inventions challenge their materialistic and intellectual understanding, after the initial unsettling they land back to their time-tested understanding about life; exceptions are there in those categories though. Young people, on the contrary are dare devils, with a lot of curiosity to know the world and imbibe the </span></span><span style="color: #050505; font-family: Segoe UI Historic, Segoe UI, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">ever-renewing</span></span><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit;"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"> technologies. Their ideas about the object(ive) world are different from those of the old people. When such ideas are made into expressions, the youngsters resort to unprecedented approaches and choose hitherto disused objects, materials and concepts. Those who look for beauty in the conventional sense, such works of art may be a disappointment. But the viewers, art collectors and so on, cannot live in a Chaplinesque dreamscape forever where the primal innocence is the driving force and the dominant theme. Contemporary works of art are meant to challenge the conventional ideas about art. When they are capable of challenging, the intelligent ones would say, what a challenge! </span></span></span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">-JohnyML</span></div></div>JohnyMLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854530824953334475noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8872146559118935939.post-74888332117832026122023-11-17T12:39:00.000+05:302023-11-17T12:39:00.992+05:30Prof.B.N.Goswamy No More: A Quick Portrait of the Art Historian <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWgrX1COc6et8llsu5OvEPf1JvPhKG0vh9LWKZzKnfqF16osEu1DUquMtobA0BCG28fmVDl0TzPADaM34VubtoVhvk9zkeDIYufgFaD05EpHoDhd3m0bOSk-toaWlLjxHmo_BWMQSy62i6rGuJiaUK9JIKs2ncsGSglxnOIRc9krA_GzUPKwrN5ueOK10/s1214/BNG%202'.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1214" data-original-width="1055" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWgrX1COc6et8llsu5OvEPf1JvPhKG0vh9LWKZzKnfqF16osEu1DUquMtobA0BCG28fmVDl0TzPADaM34VubtoVhvk9zkeDIYufgFaD05EpHoDhd3m0bOSk-toaWlLjxHmo_BWMQSy62i6rGuJiaUK9JIKs2ncsGSglxnOIRc9krA_GzUPKwrN5ueOK10/s320/BNG%202'.jpg" width="278" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">(Prof. B.N.Goswami 1933-2023)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">Prof.B.N.Goswamy,
the renowned art historian is no more. He was ninety years old. A man who
inherited his classy lifestyle and erudition during the tumultuous years of
colonial era kept that on without compromising even after India gained
independence. He was an IAS officer for a few years and left his administrative
skills behind to do further research on Indian art, especially Pahari and Sikh
art. His curiosity moved from recognizing the lesser known manuscripts and
illuminations from the regional varieties of Indian miniature traditions and
writing volumes about them, to the identification of artists who did signature
style works in the courts of northern provinces since the Mughal period. He pored
himself over innumerable volumes of documents kept by the temple priests whose
relentless documentations of the donors in cash, kind and art, without losing
the finer details such as the painters’ names, those of the donors and
witnesses under certain chieftains and kings, and brought out volumes on
artists such as Pahari Masters: Court Painters of Northern India, Nainsukh of
Guler: A Great Indian Painter from a Small Hill State, Manaku of Guler: the
Life and Work of Another Great Indian Painter from a Small Hill State. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">I met
Prof.B.N.Goswamy personally in 2012, when I was invited by Chandigarh Lalit
Kala Akademi to give an illustrated lecture. Prof.Goswamy, to my surprise, came
and sat in the front row and kept listening to my rather lengthy presentation for
slightly over one and half hour. After the lecture he shook hands with me and
said he enjoyed looking at the contemporary works of art that were detailed in
my presentation. Reading B.N.Goswami has always been a pleasurable thing. His
volumes are written in chaste English but never pretentious or deliberately
tedious and complex. He never encumbered his writing with unnecessary jargons.
He could transport an art history enthusiast and a general reader to the layers
of Indian art traditions prevailed in the northern provinces of our country both
in his writings as well as in his illustrated lectures. He had this theatrical
flourish in his presentations, which often ended with an image where Lord
Krishna was presented in an absent form, through a blooming tree. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">Prof.
B.N.Goswami always reminded me of the late painter, Jehangir Sabawala; both of
them exuded a sense of Victorian elegance. While Sabawala was aloof in nature
(may be he was accessible to his friends, galleries, collectors and dealers,
which I was not) but Prof.Goswami remained accessible to students and scholars
alike, but never made himself a populist. He stuck to his methodology and
writing style and did not traverse to the realm of contemporary art (except for
once) as some art historians specializing in 19<sup>th</sup> century or earlier
centuries tend to do. Most of them believe that methodology makes art history;
a sort of stencil application of the historical methodology over contemporary
arts done in different contexts and intents, and make hybrid art historical
writings, overtly jargon infested and opaque. Prof.Goswamy never fell into that
fallacy. To put it differently, he did not emulate a Hindustani singer who
thought he would rap for a change and cut himself a sorry figure.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">Brijinder
Nath Goswamy, that was his full name. I never knew it till recently. I was reading
his book ‘The Indian Cat’, his last work on art history, approached through a different
trajectory where he picked up a set of Indian traditional works of art where
cats are depicted as a side character or a predominant one. In that book, one
of his foreign friends calls him ‘Brij’ and I was curious. Like the book revealed
another side of Goswamy, it also revealed to me that his name was Brijinder
Nath Goswamy and his close friends called him Brij. In every person there are
two persons, at least. One is for public consumption and another one for exclusive
private use. How was B.N.Goswamy in private, did he always wore a scarf around
his neck like some old film stars, or did he always sleep on a spotless
bedsheet and so on, we are not privy to know. But the public personality of
Prof.Goswamy was that of a meticulous art historian, always looking for a lost
name of an artist and giving him his due acknowledgement in Indian art history,
a delayed justice but what a justice! <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">We are
going to miss Prof.B.N.Goswamy for a long time. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">-JohnyML<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><br /><p></p>JohnyMLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854530824953334475noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8872146559118935939.post-10365487356013408922023-09-20T17:52:00.001+05:302023-09-20T17:52:12.513+05:30Do Not Mistake Sher-Gil’s Money as Indian Women Artists’ Gain<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjst-n79YtqOWfFkk9iaFQSUKs8Lso4WOtSgnqMC3PJJWHKP0LKjMdQJ1DrsFBvzd6m5l0gDsmYv_zg1RxiDn7X8t92F4M1tyGeqfvI4Nh9Mw_PqfVuYyhduziUKshpv6eYv613xqg8ZxN0UOvk9vaRkNPBD8aM_Q1LOIMgqZny87LR69Sov1UKXg1owXU/s474/sher%201.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="284" data-original-width="474" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjst-n79YtqOWfFkk9iaFQSUKs8Lso4WOtSgnqMC3PJJWHKP0LKjMdQJ1DrsFBvzd6m5l0gDsmYv_zg1RxiDn7X8t92F4M1tyGeqfvI4Nh9Mw_PqfVuYyhduziUKshpv6eYv613xqg8ZxN0UOvk9vaRkNPBD8aM_Q1LOIMgqZny87LR69Sov1UKXg1owXU/s320/sher%201.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal">(Story Teller by Amrita Sher-Gil sold for Rs.61.8 Cr)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Amrita Sher-Gil is in news again, obviously for
monetary reasons only. Of late people speak about art when it fetches exorbitant
prices in the auction market. The gavel went down for Sher-Gil last week for a
whopping price of Rs.61.8 Crore in the Saffronart Auction for her painting
titled ‘The Story Teller’. I am not here to debate the price or the ethics of
art market. I am just curious about the ways in which the news was reported
both in the conventional and social media. Money makes news and news make
money, that is the trend of our times. So, Amrita Sher-Gil’s painting fetching a
huge amount is definitely newsworthy. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It is curious to see how unknown people exchanging
money in ways unknown to ordinary people throw the latter into orgasmic spasms.
Most of the people who have commented on the incident seem to have taken ‘ecstasy’
or some similar potion as they gush about Sher-Gil and her market worth as if
she belonged to their families. Money’s intoxication seems to have become so contagious
that it sends people hallucinatory in a sense. Someone posted in a whatsapp
group, ‘Finally justice is done to Sher-Gil. It is a new dawn for the women artists
in India.’ I was wondering about the kind of injustice that had been done to
Sher-Gil by the Indian art scene till she fetched this kind of money. So I
asked, did that person who posted the message really believed whether it was a
new dawn for the women artists in India.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_1OS80Xjc1gqWC1TvC2ZIT5MfttUT-B6pGe2STLAjQY_AwzxZjPib9AQCPXdz2cpCXEHRgb-wmhnQT2gW66HHRQKQTZU8TTF54DpVGHGI7qdxyaOWSg9Cz48XftuEgOqAOZ60QH32rIDHgasKOgEfyg8glDFmc757z0I-WSwcsHH4LuVYss36JpV7wu8/s474/sher%202.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="266" data-original-width="474" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_1OS80Xjc1gqWC1TvC2ZIT5MfttUT-B6pGe2STLAjQY_AwzxZjPib9AQCPXdz2cpCXEHRgb-wmhnQT2gW66HHRQKQTZU8TTF54DpVGHGI7qdxyaOWSg9Cz48XftuEgOqAOZ60QH32rIDHgasKOgEfyg8glDFmc757z0I-WSwcsHH4LuVYss36JpV7wu8/s320/sher%202.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>(Amrita Sher-Gil)<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It felt like a hungry man feeling satiated upon smelling
the fragrance of the delicious dishes cooked in the neighbor’s kitchen. I asked
a few women artists whether they felt the same with the price of Sher-Gil, a
sort of liberation, hope and aspiration. None felt so. Everybody thought that
it was a market ploy that everyone knows about. Though people do not know clearly
how auction houses function according to a pre-planned sketch, a blueprint for
structuring the flow of money, everyone today knows that periodical
transformation of dead artists into heroes and heroines is a necessity to keep
the art scene guessing; who could be the next. As you play your cards on the regular
Progressives a sort of ennui could set in. To dispel boredom better you introduce
surprises. In fact, for those who closely observe the pattern of auctioneering,
there are not many surprises in store for them. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Auctions are like a sort of beating hot and cold.
Major works of Amrita Sher-Gil are in the National Gallery of Modern Art, New
Delhi. The rest of her works must be with her relatives and family estate if
any or in the extended family of Sher-Gil. She is said to have done only 200
works in her life. So gathering the paintings from these sources is important.
Auction houses need provenance and they know how to establish provenance in the
absence of a real one. Once the work is found, provenance is ready and there are
stake holders, it is the time for surprise. And the players are not the auctioneers
and the faceless/unknown collectors. There are a number of players in between
and around who decide what to be hot and what to be cold for the season. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3mCRsmEjr6Z-7MgHIFjgDrKspOb4lc_1oS9TDAUzvB2_61OlEU-C0UeH76WeEXq0CZVNLxDaxICvFUEgnt8mbQWGkIz2zBBd875vwM45Ly4eQNhEF_5U9lF-vZFMaOfBRXfhWojNJdVpns-MAjBwZmPHf3ojt3FBTe6WjDB9lERDsYuBx-3vvpN8TsaU/s474/sher%203.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="379" data-original-width="474" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3mCRsmEjr6Z-7MgHIFjgDrKspOb4lc_1oS9TDAUzvB2_61OlEU-C0UeH76WeEXq0CZVNLxDaxICvFUEgnt8mbQWGkIz2zBBd875vwM45Ly4eQNhEF_5U9lF-vZFMaOfBRXfhWojNJdVpns-MAjBwZmPHf3ojt3FBTe6WjDB9lERDsYuBx-3vvpN8TsaU/s320/sher%203.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p><br /></o:p></span></p>(Tahitian Women Taking Shelter Under Shadow by Paul Gauguin)<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I was looking at the reports that came after the grand
fetching of money by Amrita Sher-Gil’s work. All the newspapers, portals and
other mediums said the same thing about Sher-Gil. They all expressed happiness that
finally Amrita got her due. Why so? In the same reports they say she had fetched
Rs.6 Crores back in 2004, a whopping price for those times. Hadn’t she got her due
then? Language of journalism, I tell myself in order to pacify the mild tremors
in me. Then all of them invariably go on talking about her biography. Amrita
Sher-Gil was born in Hungary and her mother was blah blah blah. Some words
about the painting, ‘Story Teller’ that stands in the middle as the reason for
this euphoria? No. Nobody seems to have something to say about it. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Some among the journalists write a few lines about the
work and mention the year of its making, 1937. Thank god, at least that much
information is there about the work! Then they too have to show their research.
So they ramble on about Paul Gauguin, Pahari Miniatures and Ajanta Murals, the
styles that had apparently influenced Sher-Gil. It is very easy to draw Gauguin
into the picture. He was exotic and alien in Tahiti and also exploitative to
certain extent. Somebody could mistake even Sher-Gil for the same; for her
selective use of orientalism in a Gauguin-esque fashion. She was famous for making
tableaus before making a painting. She modelled her paintings after the women
in the hills in their utter poverty and gloom, exactly the way Gauguin had used
the Tahitian women for his sexcapades and sexploitation. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaGRLsAPRjTbUA6MCyPSXsgDTfW-gHIt50rya3WdvcBxwNZdSb5VbvSJFBeybXSlhgKeOUHTCJssFBRnh3DOORB6JknKqV1h6zpmjVk7F91sfyNN9V3-Zyg2rzHjxN5a6MFGlO8pLlfobi6LF1YUBlcSjj1qtSO1bHuQwHMM9O1TTf6_BKBlyzGGfhsd4/s952/sher%204.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="952" data-original-width="700" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaGRLsAPRjTbUA6MCyPSXsgDTfW-gHIt50rya3WdvcBxwNZdSb5VbvSJFBeybXSlhgKeOUHTCJssFBRnh3DOORB6JknKqV1h6zpmjVk7F91sfyNN9V3-Zyg2rzHjxN5a6MFGlO8pLlfobi6LF1YUBlcSjj1qtSO1bHuQwHMM9O1TTf6_BKBlyzGGfhsd4/s320/sher%204.jpg" width="235" /></a></div>(Painting by Amria Sher-Gil)<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">‘The Story Teller’ comes from the same stable. The gloomy
colors typical to Sher-Gil is very much in the palette. There are five woman
and boy in an inner courtyard, a location that Sher-Gil had always liked and
used repeatedly as a recurring image in many of her works. She, a libertarian
knew the plight of her rural counterparts and their wretched lives confined in
the inner courtyards. They may be decking up a young bride or taking an
afternoon nap, their world is confined in the courtyard. Sher-Gil knew it and
she made them pose in those locations itself. The maximum she did was to keep
them inside the rooms, against gloomy walls. Sher-Gil must have been enamored
by the dark beauties, a kind of her own doubles in other bodies, in other
guises and in other locations. This must have given her a different kick. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The five woman are seen animated in their own ways.
The painting is called story teller. The woman in the lower middle is seen
recounting something but it doesn’t mean that the other women are glued to her
story. They all seem to be in their own world of reveries. The boy who is on
the charpoy with his mother or aunt is interested in the story. There is a dog
cooling off under the charpoy and there are three bovine creatures minding
their own business, except one which is looking intently at the betel leaf that
the lady is holding. There is a man in the picture who has not been given any
permission to come in. He wants to inform something to ladies or he is keeping
an eye on them. His precarious position shows that he doesn’t hold any power on
the women in their own locations. The liminal line that separates two worlds,
of the men and women, though not really an emphatic one plays a pivotal role in
the painting which only a pair of trained eyes could see. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Happy that money is flowing into the Indian art market
which will have trickle effect on the younger contemporaries. However, Amrita
Sher-Gil’s painting fetching sixty one crore rupees is definitely not going to
help the Indian artists in general or the Indian women artists in particular.
Auction results are a different game altogether. One thing is true; Amrita
Sher-Gil’s works will slowly re-surface in the coming days and there would be a
lot of activities in the secondary market. It is always good for the art
market. Auction house results expands the boundaries of the rigid art market
and definitely, slowly the money bags will loosen the strings before the
contemporary works of art too. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">JohnyML<o:p></o:p></span></p>JohnyMLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854530824953334475noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8872146559118935939.post-44847044063990141152023-09-19T18:05:00.001+05:302023-09-19T18:05:11.051+05:30Female Artists in the Land of Male Artists: The Curious Case of Kishori Kaul<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0hLQ3E3PZpGyrn5ODid1tT-VhOb2L1KKcOQKhNf2-aXJHX5cD-3vt9Lx8nKrl0PnLg_93wWtuUVmjkgMTT5f2IpI5qi-4bqptHYwbgAdfuNlRjhBKr96yoyh1N8I18QRfJJ270G4olg2cMeUx480xxezyQonaNhyyffhk_P73DITfH4Wzaz6ApCKmSPQ/s4000/IMG_20230919_145826052.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0hLQ3E3PZpGyrn5ODid1tT-VhOb2L1KKcOQKhNf2-aXJHX5cD-3vt9Lx8nKrl0PnLg_93wWtuUVmjkgMTT5f2IpI5qi-4bqptHYwbgAdfuNlRjhBKr96yoyh1N8I18QRfJJ270G4olg2cMeUx480xxezyQonaNhyyffhk_P73DITfH4Wzaz6ApCKmSPQ/s320/IMG_20230919_145826052.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">While standing in front of the paintings of Kishori
Kaul, a question flashes in my mind. Is her visual language male or female? Language
is neutral and devoid of gender, they say. But we know that language is an ideologically
driven tool, and it has gender. Visual language too has gender and ideology. The
more an artist becomes aware about her leaning towards ideology and gender
politics the more she uses gendered and ideologically driven language. What
would have happened to those women artists who were destined to live among the
dominant male artists and carve out a niche for themselves? Either they would
leave the place altogether (exactly the way Amrita Sher Gil left Europe saying
that she was leaving Europe to Picasso and taking India for herself) or stick
to the same place and compete with the male artists (like Leonor Fini and
Dorothea Tanning during the surrealist period and Lee Krasner of the Abstract
Expressionist time) and gain marginal success and fame. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Kishori Kaul belongs to the latter group who decided
to stick to the same place where the male artists dominated. She was born in
Kashmir and went to study art in the illustrious Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda.
Both the artist and the institution were taking baby steps, and the enthusiasm
was very high. It was post-Sher Gil time and B.Prabha and Nasreen Mohammedi
were her contemporaries, with slight difference in years. Sher Gil was a huge
possibility and a hindrance for most of the women artists. Sher Gil had the
socio-cultural means to be a liberal and liberated woman artist much ahead of
her times. She could negotiate with the royal houses and could find patrons
among the rich and powerful. The case of the post-Sher Gil women artists was
not like that. They were absolutely home grown and had to wage war against the
existing social conditions that prevented women from becoming independent human
beings with creative abilities. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjlWtmVjb5e4icYI0peQ2BVK4Ps9KHeZRu42tY-4Vm1CgljXIW-wSyasIe8gksiE2JtTKXmMyqJSaADydIi5atPlXpwSFpW1gDjfwt_US7j-zY2VNcGQSUetk-2V7hPswhWdpb5T9fQrOKmdzRkc8lFj92KibU8C9-PYEkcJXf9bYa6VcCRursPisEozA/s4000/IMG_20230919_145630169.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjlWtmVjb5e4icYI0peQ2BVK4Ps9KHeZRu42tY-4Vm1CgljXIW-wSyasIe8gksiE2JtTKXmMyqJSaADydIi5atPlXpwSFpW1gDjfwt_US7j-zY2VNcGQSUetk-2V7hPswhWdpb5T9fQrOKmdzRkc8lFj92KibU8C9-PYEkcJXf9bYa6VcCRursPisEozA/s320/IMG_20230919_145630169.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">N.S.Bendre was one of the teachers who established the
fundamentals of teaching modern art in Baroda’s faculty of fine arts. He was a
maverick and worked like a magician using different palettes, brushes, knives
and other tools. He was more inclined to make rural subjects with lean and dark
figures, obviously a departure from the so called Indian School of painting, which
again is a derivate of the Calcutta School of painting perfected by
Abanindranath Tagore, Asit Kumar Haldar, Nandalal Bose and so on. While the
earlier doyens stuck to their premises with limited palettes, romantic effects
and lofty philosophies to substantiate their creations, N.S.Bendre created a
different kind of aesthetics across the Indian mainland without any restrictions.
But Bendre, despite his urban experiences reminded rural at heart and his
creativity overflowed when he worked on the rural imagery. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Ideologically, Bendre did not lean too much towards
any nationalistic project the way his elders had done. Perhaps, Bose had some
influence regarding the choice of the subjects. Inspired Ajanta paintings, off
and on Bose went into the mythological stories of both Buddhism and Hinduism.
It was a part of the larger cultural makeup of the country, which the modernists
somehow preferred to keep aside, allowing only occasional entries into their works.
Bendre, however kept mythologies out of his works and focused on secular
subjects, something that defined the Baroda School of painters including the
imported K.G.Subramanyan. B.Prabha, coming from the Bendre school of painting,
turned her attention towards the rural folk and fish mongers and one could say
that her works had this distinct quality in terms of subject matter. However, when
it came to the style, she could not move much away from the Bendre school of
painting. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVHX4qAgxqW42dt90RGoFTsDZmpiQhU9Lj4Bb1Raz5TaAed3fjqsyWuAHUj3ZxEzG3npXq_5cLDHCiBv9z0EmwsrUGpx61FF73dBPHMZFkOydhZ3sLScjQDOhDcl-HcRyzTLIEA31r7OWTZmrDmVfl2oAm5DVDDFA8a3jcB2ItPXK-zqMozY6zoMMht-w/s3264/IMG_20230919_145339433.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVHX4qAgxqW42dt90RGoFTsDZmpiQhU9Lj4Bb1Raz5TaAed3fjqsyWuAHUj3ZxEzG3npXq_5cLDHCiBv9z0EmwsrUGpx61FF73dBPHMZFkOydhZ3sLScjQDOhDcl-HcRyzTLIEA31r7OWTZmrDmVfl2oAm5DVDDFA8a3jcB2ItPXK-zqMozY6zoMMht-w/s320/IMG_20230919_145339433.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Kishori Kaul too, in the big bad world of male
painters, seems to have been stuck with the male visual language. Kaul’s works
from the 60s are best example of this. She uses thick impastos of oil paint
using palette knife for its application. The works have that modernist vintage
flair that attracts one towards her paintings. As you keep watching her works,
the question that came to my mind in the beginning refuses to budge. Keeping the
biographical details of Kaul apart from her works, how does one discern that
the works are painted by a female painter. The works currently on display at
the Triveni Gallery in Delhi, presented by Anant Art Gallery, impart this feeling
that Kaul is one kind of a woman artist who has not differentiated her language
from that of the male artists of her formative years and later on. There is intrinsic
evidence that tell the viewer of her indebtedness to the late 19<sup>th</sup>
and mid 20<sup>th</sup> century male painters of the West routed through the
Indian modernists. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">As she progressed in age, she seems to have loosened up
her otherwise tight palette with thick knife applications and let the canvas
peep out through the brush strokes. She has finally picked up brush and left
the knife behind. The change in the tool has made all the difference. The
background becomes lucid, and the contours are visible in their curvaceous lines.
They almost look like Japanese portrait paintings with blank background created
by pigment swatches. Further we move to see her works that are inspired nature;
there are landscapes, close up of lotus ponds, lily ponds and so on. The spring
in her mind comes back in random strokes on the canvas through liberated color
applications. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfb3Fya6bzX7zgakLqrLNxZUpeAYHcTUvAqKahFQ7KGv2CudDojgOOv0pdj8cIhrNoA_kkmU-iPZiVQ8IPVyhjOVyD0pUarMES_wSehocu5Wk9ZxfITBipfb2x3a9xtcCqVNeqAap4Ow-uU7CiEZksdAdZNGYrx4DABx5SaTUWUdpkSBwJN2HMGIGzzGk/s4000/IMG_20230919_145738061.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfb3Fya6bzX7zgakLqrLNxZUpeAYHcTUvAqKahFQ7KGv2CudDojgOOv0pdj8cIhrNoA_kkmU-iPZiVQ8IPVyhjOVyD0pUarMES_wSehocu5Wk9ZxfITBipfb2x3a9xtcCqVNeqAap4Ow-uU7CiEZksdAdZNGYrx4DABx5SaTUWUdpkSBwJN2HMGIGzzGk/s320/IMG_20230919_145738061.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The organizers have called it a retrospective. There
is only scant literature about the artist in the internet space. Each piece available
says the same thing; her early days in Kashmir, a great grandfather who was an
artist, an affliction of tuberculosis during her teens, her first tryst with
colors and canvas, her art education in Baroda and so on. There are mentions about
the influence of the spring, snow, hills, valleys, flowers and water from her
native in her works. But the works say a different story, at least in the
exhibits. When Kaul paints, she paints like a male artist. There is nothing that
leads to make her distinct from the male artists of the time. I don’t blame
her. It was the dilemma that most of the women artists of the time had gone
through. Salvaging Kishori Kaul from those dominant male visual narratives and
finding a space for herself in the hall of fame is important. Hope that will
happen soon, before she is made into a spectacle in the auction sales (or the
effort to make her a spectacle in the auction sales) because auction houses
also need some convincing narrative to make a sales pitch. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">-JohnyML<o:p></o:p></span></p>JohnyMLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854530824953334475noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8872146559118935939.post-66752343370928696032023-09-18T15:43:00.005+05:302023-09-18T15:50:02.595+05:30House of Memories and the Strange Pilgrimage of Objects: A Note on the Installation of Aakshat Sinha<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc5Og7rTqMTngMAFTUuZ6F-nKw0TQKiKrBVQvtmWQc7i2bDjdI2J3eddGft_MN00xYWDtGa-bTe6b-RLZjLoDBjTmaWIatC_hJzw7rAcGp7BiFiGu8XSGClk71WnvRjeEc3IHyHs7244mVehYzaKBPBhm04J8nUgyPLsKt2p5h0NM1pgCb2WTtFwnrhxU/s1280/IMG-20230916-WA0049.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1280" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc5Og7rTqMTngMAFTUuZ6F-nKw0TQKiKrBVQvtmWQc7i2bDjdI2J3eddGft_MN00xYWDtGa-bTe6b-RLZjLoDBjTmaWIatC_hJzw7rAcGp7BiFiGu8XSGClk71WnvRjeEc3IHyHs7244mVehYzaKBPBhm04J8nUgyPLsKt2p5h0NM1pgCb2WTtFwnrhxU/s320/IMG-20230916-WA0049.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> (Yaad Ghar, Installation by Aakshat Sinha)</o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p><br /></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Objects are the products of history. An object having
an existence without history cannot be called an object. Objects are cursed to
carry history with them. History, in turn is not the lofty stories of those who
had won the battles, established monuments and registered their legacies in
various mediums. History belongs to the people the way streets belong to them.
Bound between leather covers, the annals may contain historical registrations
that look profound. However, the shelves that carry such tomes, the chairs that
are sat in to read those volumes, the accumulated darkness on the hand rest of
those chairs, the inkpot and everything have got histories; nothing can escape
the fate of being converted into a component of history. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Aakshat Sinha knows the relevance of history inscribed
on the objects. For him collecting and accumulating are two different things.
Collecting is practiced by someone whose interest lies in objects with special
connotations that inspire his ideas and the classification that he does based
on chronology or any other mode gives immense satisfaction to his curiosity in
building an understanding about the world. One could call it creating a narrative
universe through objects of worth. Accumulation on the other hand is a practice
that is partially collecting but indiscriminate in nature. What comes into the
hands of the accumulator does not go out only because the accumulator finds a
value that transcends its object-hood and attributes it with a meaning intrinsic
to the narrative universe of his making. Each object stands in association with
the autobiography of the accumulator and by virtue of him being a social being
the objects thus accumulated become the building blocks of a collective
biography of the times that he has lived in. Hence, anyone one who sees the
accumulated objects quickly finds an emotional association with them.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQSFhgJJ-s6rhLIezXE0mYh2vmORAjkqFroGOnP8vccN3fOG1GRW-wRrm8ReKOE4rMalxgO1j6VVVgib9FLKyPb6PILujlgKh-F0n2kDPRDQI5RF46qqtJMyrM9I6bNB6p8bLh4RTNnMsdS1YS0SpFP_sA7wYUzE1E-eoINqWAzIvX9-oqr_v1y64BLJw/s747/aakshat%20Sinha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="736" data-original-width="747" height="315" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQSFhgJJ-s6rhLIezXE0mYh2vmORAjkqFroGOnP8vccN3fOG1GRW-wRrm8ReKOE4rMalxgO1j6VVVgib9FLKyPb6PILujlgKh-F0n2kDPRDQI5RF46qqtJMyrM9I6bNB6p8bLh4RTNnMsdS1YS0SpFP_sA7wYUzE1E-eoINqWAzIvX9-oqr_v1y64BLJw/s320/aakshat%20Sinha.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p><br /></o:p></span></p>(Aakshat Sinha)<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">‘Yaad Ghar’ (the House of Remembrance) is an open air installation
with such objects with collective history, accumulated and presented by Aakshat
Sinha, a curator, artist and a mechanical engineer by profession. Museums are
houses of remembrance because the objects collected and displayed in those galleries
remind us of the histories pertaining to them. Those objects are the syllables
of a grand narrative, each waiting for deciphering. The more remote are the
objects in time the more they look distanced, romantic and enveloped by magic.
Though well founded histories are written about those objects the magic of
their detached existence, something separated from the labels, QR Codes, Museum
manuals and the audio guides, goad people to weave their own stories around
them. Museums are methodical and randomness cannot be permitted in its
narrative. In Yaad Ghar, there is madness and randomness, but both presented
with some poetic methods. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Right in the middle of the atrium of the India Habitat
Centre, New Delhi, Yaad Ghar stands like a makeshift place of worship with the
objects arranged there look like parts of an esoteric ritual around the idols created
out of random objects. The sanctum sanctorum is flanked by a two discarded
mannequins salvaged from an old boutique run by Sinha’s mother at some point of
time. Those erstwhile beautiful plastic human forms are now bandaged and
bruised, wearing heavy facemasks worn while a chemical war or fatal pandemic
rampage is underway. The chairs have been there at his home and the beanbags, the
marvel cards and the knick-knacks also have been a part of Sinha’s life at some
point. They are all memory holders; for the viewers, they are memory makers. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_HThXHAeM104z7oLEoPDy1QmAM5WsY2LOrZr0PkUp0qHj0yT3vHRHIGUO_mtdkCGZR97yzPsxa2APUcuQnd1WktSaSbkvNAQZAFPV2gti2aZhj0_h1ePuj1hsExCX1M9ww1uTQV_hzlefrSUkXu5gxOe_bKgUDb497qy-BW6p7g4QZa1Q45JVM_ZeUW4/s1280/IMG-20230916-WA0046.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1280" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_HThXHAeM104z7oLEoPDy1QmAM5WsY2LOrZr0PkUp0qHj0yT3vHRHIGUO_mtdkCGZR97yzPsxa2APUcuQnd1WktSaSbkvNAQZAFPV2gti2aZhj0_h1ePuj1hsExCX1M9ww1uTQV_hzlefrSUkXu5gxOe_bKgUDb497qy-BW6p7g4QZa1Q45JVM_ZeUW4/s320/IMG-20230916-WA0046.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p>(Yaad Ghar)</o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Sinha, the self-styled accumulator of things believes
that he is a hoarder. He just cannot throw away things. Hence, his house is full
objects that reminds him of the life that he has lived so far. Imagine anything
that you grew up with since 1970s till date in an urban center, Sinha has them
all. Spring cleaning is the last thing perhaps he does every year and he cleans
only to save those discards from disappearing. Sigmund Freud calls the collectors
and accumulators anal retentive people. Children who are afraid of defecating
because of their fear of losing something of their own are anally retentive
creatures. As they grow up they learn to discharge the refuse and maintain
personal hygiene. Grown-ups showing anal retention is something different; they
know what personal hygiene means but they just cannot throw things away. They
find strength in the materials accumulated; I should say, they find life in the
objects that are capable of invoking exquisite narratives about their lived
lives. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Keeping one’s own life open for the scrutiny of others
is the driving motto behind most of the autobiographies. They use verbal narrative
as a medium of explication. Here in Sinha’s case he uses the accumulated
objects as his medium and interestingly everyone finds a little bit of themselves
in those objects. Art of any kind is supposed to create empathy among the viewers
and reliving the lived memories is the way to cathartic effects that leave the
people relieved of existential burdens. Object based art as well as verbal and
non-verbal aesthetical communications do the same thing to the onlookers. The
installation of Aakshat Sinha too does the same thing; it draws people into the
chaotic randomness of the objects and make them unspool the memories at the very
sight of those objects; a Proustian effect. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihoFGBaE9N2-I0Eb1iu7A4DKzSabbFqbJ98Gwk223fnnHIAWbRi5aq1_lr4hF9jKIff_jXhuP3yRrLIA_ZbU8ItUPob3Wh6MPjYhh42AuYEhYMJT8H8Ynv0vibM6qmkIrivswNOzsKj6WJD0DiH_O8XOjqw7Au0yjVeVBX2bpxrMTMijamNii5V0xUnUs/s1280/IMG-20230916-WA0050.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1280" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihoFGBaE9N2-I0Eb1iu7A4DKzSabbFqbJ98Gwk223fnnHIAWbRi5aq1_lr4hF9jKIff_jXhuP3yRrLIA_ZbU8ItUPob3Wh6MPjYhh42AuYEhYMJT8H8Ynv0vibM6qmkIrivswNOzsKj6WJD0DiH_O8XOjqw7Au0yjVeVBX2bpxrMTMijamNii5V0xUnUs/s320/IMG-20230916-WA0050.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Orhan Pamuk, the Nobel Prize winning Turkish novelist
has created a ‘Museum of Innocence’. As he started writing a novel with the
same title in 1990s he felt like collecting all those objects that he has
mentioned in that novel and house them under a single roof. Slowly the novel
and the museum evolved together, objects giving ideas to the novel and novel
making the novelist to look for those objects from his childhood elsewhere.
With the novel he completed the museum and today it is housed in a 19<sup>th</sup>
century building where the objects speak to the visitors irrespective of their
familiarity with the novel’s plot or not. In Urdu there is a word for Museums, ‘Ajaib
Ghar’, the house of strange things. During the colonial period, museums were
developed as the cabinet of curios where the colonial masters, merchants and
the new gentry collected exotic objects and opened it for their personal
guests. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Detached in and from time, the objects that constitute
Sinha’s installation, Yaad Ghar also transform themselves as exotic things, their
familiarity now shrouded by disuse and decay. They become uncanny objects,
filling in déjà vu with its edges sharpened with unfamiliarity. The decaying objects
impart a magnetic horror, as we see in the termite eaten pulp fictions carefully
stuffed in a plexi-glass vitrine. They could have been confined to flames, erasing
their existence even from the memory, but in Yaad Ghar they stay put with some
kind of stale stubbornness only death can demonstrate. The installation as a
total is a memento mori, a reminder of death and decay, the futility of
accumulation but at the same time the unbearable lightness of being both in
carnal bodies and in memories. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">-JohnyML<o:p></o:p></span></p>JohnyMLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854530824953334475noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8872146559118935939.post-12469292543725239502023-09-14T17:16:00.001+05:302023-09-14T17:16:05.857+05:30Writing an Obituary about an Artist and it becomes the Writer’s Own Obituary in a Different Way<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6IN0cWp375bgZ3FUMpN5zc3vB5FIiBaZHagFWq4xexoGS2AA4e20ClBJY-YebbSJmq_vF4PCgyrSoYnbSObsc1rp6vaXozOEy3NMw0qe0jxjNoFj0BvCPCWJ4yLTvZll2PrbU5yv1rXq-N32GeLlyXju8ZZypbPCJWFdhRY0BU0xm_f6n05rKDm9EFnc/s709/valsaraj%203.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="709" data-original-width="591" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6IN0cWp375bgZ3FUMpN5zc3vB5FIiBaZHagFWq4xexoGS2AA4e20ClBJY-YebbSJmq_vF4PCgyrSoYnbSObsc1rp6vaXozOEy3NMw0qe0jxjNoFj0BvCPCWJ4yLTvZll2PrbU5yv1rXq-N32GeLlyXju8ZZypbPCJWFdhRY0BU0xm_f6n05rKDm9EFnc/s320/valsaraj%203.jpg" width="267" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> (K.P.Valsaraj)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Artist K P Valsaraj is no more. Is it an obituary that
I am going to write? Do I know him enough to write about his life or art, let
alone his personality? I had met him once, spent a few days in a camp and had talked
about art. Is it enough to write about an artist? I look at the social media
thinking that I get some more information than that I know. Most of the
artists, at least from Kerala, have condoled his passing. Everyone underlined
his mild nature and silence that he maintained in a crowd. People remember him
as a good person, devoid of blemishes. Goodness is a shroud, a public image
that we all are destined to cover ourselves with, especially when we are dead. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">If I am not going to write about Valsaraj, what am I
going to ramble around? I would like to write about death. But I realize that
death is a subject that cannot be contained in a small essay like this. Many
have written about death so brilliantly that one feels like dying for the sake
of experiencing that exquisite feeling imparted through the words. I understand
that I am not qualified to write about death because I have not experienced
death. However, I can write about someone’s death in the social media. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOF4M5zeEfsNl3Kovp-Z-C-I1QJI1fclyxmS28DWwtiK6ezqOFTiH3fwLQvt6VqknWiAIuCQTony5n9KPqBWf3WiCEHXo-6Aq6StCq-jLWJ-8rsuoeM5ABOX4aBc4Pz-tt4Emtm2NhYi9kC2-8E7sEulnbmJeLRxdNNnR05uuOqLS7NdEDxBI5U52GJV0/s1995/valsaraj%201.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1985" data-original-width="1995" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOF4M5zeEfsNl3Kovp-Z-C-I1QJI1fclyxmS28DWwtiK6ezqOFTiH3fwLQvt6VqknWiAIuCQTony5n9KPqBWf3WiCEHXo-6Aq6StCq-jLWJ-8rsuoeM5ABOX4aBc4Pz-tt4Emtm2NhYi9kC2-8E7sEulnbmJeLRxdNNnR05uuOqLS7NdEDxBI5U52GJV0/s320/valsaraj%201.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p><br /></o:p></span></p>(A Work by KP Valsaraj)<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Valsaraj was active in social media. They say, one’s
character could be assessed by the books that he reads or keep. Today, in the
age of social media, one’s personality assessment could be done by the messages
that he posts or the information that he shares. While there are people who masquerade
themselves as different people with high level of IQ and EQ through their
carefully curated social media posts. There are others who expose themselves of
their vileness through careless and mindless words. Valsaraj was not one among
them. He posted what he liked deeply. Rarely he posted his own photos or his
works. He shared mostly information and opinion that he thought socially
relevant therefore closer to his heart. There was no posturing of an
intellectual. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Some people are liked by others not because they are
great in their field of activities but because of their public image as calm and
composed person. They call it ‘a sorted personality.’ Dealing with a sorted
personality online and offline is an easy affair. There wouldn’t be subtexts
and innuendos or covert messages. Valsaraj came across as a straight person.
His posts didn’t make much in the market of ‘like economy’. But death tells us
that he had actually gained a lot of respect while living. There are people
like that in the social media whom we miss if they do not post anything for a
couple of days. Getting into that category is a really difficult thing. There
other people who are simply tolerated because they are in our friends list. We
may not like them or their posts. Their outbursts of self-righteousness may be
nauseating for us, still we simply tolerate them. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXxr7nCFjsPU3mHrosxaBOSppzVOX-TYsAtQvwXOXEfJ-2nrvwuquj-cGCNUG7vlcl0bDWbiGEh0HEyJt28ZTLksIU5EtUEcC7BX_3NyUWAY4INX8e1xITVmQFDouIfQhaBTv3jh-OZFwntOtWItQIQzv-hxNKsgfEHeFO7vIr8yEShuTrMr7vgzKlouI/s1080/valsaraj%202.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="773" data-original-width="1080" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXxr7nCFjsPU3mHrosxaBOSppzVOX-TYsAtQvwXOXEfJ-2nrvwuquj-cGCNUG7vlcl0bDWbiGEh0HEyJt28ZTLksIU5EtUEcC7BX_3NyUWAY4INX8e1xITVmQFDouIfQhaBTv3jh-OZFwntOtWItQIQzv-hxNKsgfEHeFO7vIr8yEShuTrMr7vgzKlouI/s320/valsaraj%202.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p>(Valsaraj with Ramesh Khandagiri)</o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Artists die. Their families and friends mourn for some
days. Then they are healed of his/her absence. Time heals them. They come back
to their lives. Even when the families forget their diseased kin some other
people elsewhere remember them once in a while. Not because the social media
throw up memories but because they have left some deep impressions. When it
comes to the case of Valsaraj most of them, including myself said the same
thing; they had met him once in a camp or in some cultural program. The
mourners seem to have lost the chance of talking to him because all of them
said the same thing; they saw his tall and deep personality from a distance. A
silence enveloped him always so they kept themselves away from him. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Isn’t it a miracle that a person whose life is an
enigma to the rest of the world barring his family and close friends, liked by
many in the same way; simply because they have not talked to him? Many haven’t even
seen his works closely. Was he a celebrity, a reticent one? Not at all. He was
a person who perhaps preferred to live a life far away from the maddening crowd
of artists. He had a past and he too was arrogant when he was young and a radical,
so said one of the posts. He was devoted to the ideology that he subscribed to
in those days. He was a part of the Radical Painters and Sculptors Association
otherwise known as the Radical Group (which some JNU professors finally called
the ‘Kerala Radicals’). The Radicals were against the retrogressive aesthetics
prevalent in 1980s. But the facts show us that they were not radical enough.
They were against the money making artists. The art boom of 1980s (a temporary
phenomenon that hadn’t impacted the art scene of India as a whole) brought
forth the then middle aged and old artists like the Bombay Progressives. Everyone
wanted a Husain or a Souza in their homes. That was the decade when Ravi Varma
got it from both the sides. He was equally criticized by the retrogressive
aestheticians as well as the radicals. Finally, Ravi Varma made all the money,
so were the Progressives. The Radicals committed symbolic suicide followed by a
real one. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgADSZ35dEvp-YNx3GWUQXpWioHhbJK1_5UkPjSxhri_X8AyCSGKMP6oXHJ7r7WVoXkgbK97J0KEv6t1Hdx09oFTtGKd5iAV_YG-dC02-7SprUZ3dr-4kKTuosENsxshPYjELiLgv6HPLsuOnNyiGC1X3vjIBGj5ABuinQ_PuGq-ypo8IOEUnk5dpU29As/s542/valsaraj%204.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="542" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgADSZ35dEvp-YNx3GWUQXpWioHhbJK1_5UkPjSxhri_X8AyCSGKMP6oXHJ7r7WVoXkgbK97J0KEv6t1Hdx09oFTtGKd5iAV_YG-dC02-7SprUZ3dr-4kKTuosENsxshPYjELiLgv6HPLsuOnNyiGC1X3vjIBGj5ABuinQ_PuGq-ypo8IOEUnk5dpU29As/s320/valsaraj%204.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p>(Young Valsaraj on a trip)</o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Valsaraj was against Expressionism, I should say because
the artists accused of retrogression were painting in the Expressionistic style.
So he time travelled to reach the period of Impressionism and Fauvism, an offshoot
of Expressionism while his colleagues were working with various forms of
Expressionism. So it was a contradictory and funny situation. Valsaraj however
extricated himself and settled in the area that he had chosen. He did not
change. When I saw him painting in 2018, I was astonished. He still painted in
a derivative impressionistic and expressionistic style. Can I accuse him of being
stubborn or Peter Pan-ish? No, I cannot. There are artists who works in a
certain way even after known that the style of their choice was old and no more
in fashion. Still someone pursues it, there must be an artistic stubbornness. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Who is going to write about artists when they are gone?
People who knew them definitely will jot down words of emotion. But will there be
someone to assess and appreciate his works, beyond an obituary? It boils down
to the need for artists make their own legacies, legends and folktales so that they
are widely circulated in social media or in friends’ circles. Isn’t it terrible
that an artist passes off with no evidence than his works, but no stories, no
legends and no folktales? When you are writing someone else’s obituary, in fact
you are writing your own obituary because your writing adds to your legend and
folktales. Hey, this man used to write good obit pieces. And here today he is
gone so let’s talk about the obituaries that he has written till date. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><b>JohnyML</b><o:p></o:p></span></p>JohnyMLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854530824953334475noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8872146559118935939.post-3729632792936274752023-09-13T15:33:00.001+05:302023-09-13T15:33:31.170+05:30Performing Painting for the People: A Thought<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz_4xriE0xUqO1nQPGQD0AVMh2EIsKuelFBq8Opb_654ZyX2-fQPUQWf_GIU6yx8MSE4YvnNYqcb3juctQZOE2WnQF8HFs3wpew6WJvYeG2UQNnv8_0y5jZQWJ-Yo9Y9xHwL6LAo7Gk7eNNv-xJiz5KNlw-bJHYV9niQvXgy00R-6yM9fgiBCvbe38i5E/s4000/IMG_20230913_115623280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz_4xriE0xUqO1nQPGQD0AVMh2EIsKuelFBq8Opb_654ZyX2-fQPUQWf_GIU6yx8MSE4YvnNYqcb3juctQZOE2WnQF8HFs3wpew6WJvYeG2UQNnv8_0y5jZQWJ-Yo9Y9xHwL6LAo7Gk7eNNv-xJiz5KNlw-bJHYV9niQvXgy00R-6yM9fgiBCvbe38i5E/s320/IMG_20230913_115623280.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Standing at the stairs leading to the foyer I looked
at the young people waiting enthusiastically in the lounge for the senior artist
to start his demonstration. A live painting session was in progress there and
the audience were mostly young artists and aspirants from the local art
colleges. As per the new world order and its resultant customs, they looked at
the artist and his canvas through the lenses of their mobile cameras. Some of
them were clicking stills of the man who was engrossed in demonstrating his
skills and some others were recording the session in videos thinking that they
could study the nuances of the brush strokes and mixing of the colors later. Once
the ritual of mobile mediation was done they all focused on the painting
process with their own eyes. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">What do the live sessions do to the young art
students, I thought. Was it like a musician or a dancer performing before an
audience? Obviously the performing artists impact the emotional level of the audience
before they invite the attention of the audience to the nuances of their performance
and technical virtuosity. Students of the performing artists do learn from observing
their gurus. As far as the art students are concerned apart from the class room
demonstrations that their teachers give they don’t get to see other artists
making paintings or sculptures live. The art of making art is a covert thing;
in the privacy of the studios artists make art and people are allowed to see when
the work of art is finished. That’s is a sort of rule. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhENrGECFnGR7D1uoGysI8CtmDiL8KwRxMw6BzPq2Bl8AnkS6TzbYXO7sBV4RCa4ZPoGXvg_hp1J-2Ny_lA6elUXgnvg4NTMvff3tIlaW2y_eWmrxvlLbgkwhDcT2hbRzyf2l319i-mu9-gWA7SqQSPxJrk4wkdRl41-2eNnfG9_8Y_5k1lEAb28vPj1g/s4000/IMG_20230913_115557691.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhENrGECFnGR7D1uoGysI8CtmDiL8KwRxMw6BzPq2Bl8AnkS6TzbYXO7sBV4RCa4ZPoGXvg_hp1J-2Ny_lA6elUXgnvg4NTMvff3tIlaW2y_eWmrxvlLbgkwhDcT2hbRzyf2l319i-mu9-gWA7SqQSPxJrk4wkdRl41-2eNnfG9_8Y_5k1lEAb28vPj1g/s320/IMG_20230913_115557691.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">However, there are exceptions to this. There are
artists who are comfortable in the company of others. They can draw or paint
while someone is watching or talking. They are not afraid of their styles and
techniques being copied or imitated. But others, whether they are afraid of
copycats or not, they are comfortable in their private worlds. Even if visitors
are allowed once in a while it is not for showing the process of working but to
show them the finished work. At times, these reticent artists too reveal their processes
before an audience especially when they are video documented for a mutually
agreed upon documentary or when they are in a camp. Artists who regularly go
for camps or workshops are not afraid of being before an audience while they do
the work. Sometimes camps are organized for the benefit of the young artists
and art students. Those artists who do not want to work before an audience do
not go for camps. Nowadays camp means sight-seeing pleasure trips. Works are to
be given to the organizers only when the artists are back in their studios. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">One thing is sure that people never lose interest in
watching an artist work. It is really the magic of making. Artists working
amidst a crowd are like public performers, like street magicians and street artists.
They are aware of the public and at the same time they know how to hold the interest
of the public safe from waning. They take out their work materials as if they
were magicians or a street vendor displaying his wares. The moment they start
working a small crowd gathers and it swells into a strong one. Each line and
stroke is followed closely by the attentive eyes. They twist and turn as the
lines take different shapes. There is a physical response to the artists’
performance of making art. I have seen people waiting the works to be finished.
It is not just about the lucky one who has been picked up as the model by the
artists but also the onlookers. They all want to see the finished work and feel
good about what they have just seen. Each one in the crowd feels that he or she
should be picked up as the next model. None would mind if the artist is just
making a landscape exactly the way the Barbizon School painters in the late 19<sup>th</sup>
century did in Paris and Shibu Natesan does these days. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt6o3zQYYNoXR9oAO-hamGqor0yCPa4AQFZN_iX0J0ReOuPXQNjQinXT0Vcp4iPePYtFXW1oUc_aWHMrcTeOmFQoq52ggY29rbe24AIXCTdDJl3WNuYC5bJ2FAxyOO-cO79hA-WR84TFnPCz7ZFkFqq2Wso1ZyAlZl_65NtwoBBE5-V1VtVrEWIEWzolI/s4000/IMG_20230913_115454577.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt6o3zQYYNoXR9oAO-hamGqor0yCPa4AQFZN_iX0J0ReOuPXQNjQinXT0Vcp4iPePYtFXW1oUc_aWHMrcTeOmFQoq52ggY29rbe24AIXCTdDJl3WNuYC5bJ2FAxyOO-cO79hA-WR84TFnPCz7ZFkFqq2Wso1ZyAlZl_65NtwoBBE5-V1VtVrEWIEWzolI/s320/IMG_20230913_115454577.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Artists’ studios are highly guarded places. Artists
are like the proverbial giants who sit over the treasures. But in history there
are some artists who apparently showed their prowess in making art for the sake
of others. Some of the artists are performative in nature and as I mentioned
before they are ready to show their abilities at any given time. Pablo Picasso,
Jackson Pollock, Yves Klein and artists like them performed their paintings for
others. Generally, art teachers are comfortable in performing before the
students or other people. Photographs available in the archives show artists
like Nandlal Bose, Binod Behari Mukherjee, Ram Kinkar Baij, N.S.Bendre,
Prabhakar Kolte enthusiastically demonstrating before the students. May be that
is one reason why there are so many students evolved like them in their artistic
styles. They become part of a school, a style and a sort of philosophy. You may
ask if it is good for the growth of the students. Replicating the style is a
thing of past and was done to death with the demise of the guilds. Modern and
contemporary art demand uniqueness and experimental styles from the artist. So
following one artist or his style is not a thing to be cherished anymore. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The way art is taught in institutions is also changed.
Previously, as we have seen already, demonstration was the prime way of teaching
skill and style. Today, most of the artists and art teachers believe that art
cannot be taught so the students should be left to their own devices. Art teachers
should be just facilitators. They should be more like sounding boards who would
help the students reflect on their art than hand holding them to make art in
certain styles. However, it is observed that where the art teachers are practicing
artists themselves the students feel like emulating the working methods than
imitating the style. Following the work routine of the master/teacher is always
good for discipline. It has also been observed that where the art teachers draw
with their tongues than with their hands the students tend to do the same,
eventually becoming preachers of sorts than artists, conceptual or otherwise. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin3vi8ZWSQn0wv_kavZd5LMesnLhJvHZsSAftdi1ogv_PmEF-xLOfpkTZJs36kV6gqlMn2hyC_sUZPGfFNUlXIbPH4QI77KTHwKu6BDXOyJ_EHWMV9-gE7MVGEQdQSBaamVUpPjm9OAbn3KjgssaP-qerNXzJQN70Uru9tXSaDIPMZ_yXIZm4GZYn9PqQ/s4000/IMG_20230913_115537448.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin3vi8ZWSQn0wv_kavZd5LMesnLhJvHZsSAftdi1ogv_PmEF-xLOfpkTZJs36kV6gqlMn2hyC_sUZPGfFNUlXIbPH4QI77KTHwKu6BDXOyJ_EHWMV9-gE7MVGEQdQSBaamVUpPjm9OAbn3KjgssaP-qerNXzJQN70Uru9tXSaDIPMZ_yXIZm4GZYn9PqQ/s320/IMG_20230913_115537448.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Artists need appreciation from the public. Artists do
not discern between the initiated and the ordinary folks. Artists are happy
when they could arouse curiosity in others through their works. Artists, though
sometimes reluctant in talking, feel soul satisfied when people spend time
before their works. People in turn want to see how much they could grasp the
magic of art, the hidden meanings of it. When they fail to do so, they turn
their faces away. When an artist performs a painting before the people they get
enthusiastic because it is a treasure hunt in an unchartered land with no GPS
in hand. Artist him/herself guides the people towards the final point and it is
an exhilarating experience. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">-JohnyML<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">(All the pictures are from Lalit Kala Akademi Galleries
where Prof.Pranam Singh performed a painting)<o:p></o:p></span></p>JohnyMLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854530824953334475noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8872146559118935939.post-61407011756096421772023-08-29T16:08:00.006+05:302023-08-29T16:08:59.460+05:30Art Market Comes to Full Circle when Art Fair Takes Place in Five Star Hotel Rooms and Loos<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYBiuRFcqQ0O7ybDn8E0DDDGhuSRKtHdGoL9O3q1V56_rYrVmpsRDO2AVJ3ZcmgGTB7zctVscm0f9FgSKv93pTYAP3sth1asItGVno96l2AIMi6uKt_BZuD6qC-rlI1TSMxKzSIHmA1edOS3vHdcLr2WIFu-r3Jejws4SVwiJT7Bg0P3Sefqdgvj93Odk/s474/hotel%20fair%201.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="265" data-original-width="474" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYBiuRFcqQ0O7ybDn8E0DDDGhuSRKtHdGoL9O3q1V56_rYrVmpsRDO2AVJ3ZcmgGTB7zctVscm0f9FgSKv93pTYAP3sth1asItGVno96l2AIMi6uKt_BZuD6qC-rlI1TSMxKzSIHmA1edOS3vHdcLr2WIFu-r3Jejws4SVwiJT7Bg0P3Sefqdgvj93Odk/s320/hotel%20fair%201.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In a recently concluded art fair in Delhi, I was told,
the works of art were displayed in a five-star hotel. What was exceptional in
that, I thought. Even the great Indian master artists used to exhibit in five-star
hotels where they befriended rich clients to fetch their art. Lobbies, foyers
and banquet halls were used for exhibiting works. The trend seems to have never
gone out of fashion. Most of the self-taught artists, them being often rich men
and women, for reason that are peculiar to them prefer to exhibit in five-star
lobbies because they find themselves in their comfort zone, where the haunt
otherwise too to have coffee, to meet friends, to attend pool side parties and
also to have a quiet sit down dinner with their nearest ones. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The fair that had been hailed as the country’s first
hotel art fair however was different, as the photographs that I could scroll
through revealed. They exhibited the works of art by major artists inside the
hotel rooms and suite rooms. Some of pictures showed the works of art hanging
from the walls of the toilets. A suite room toilet definitely has a spacious
washroom where one could spend a lot of time, reading, napping and even
contemplating on larger aspects of life. Sometimes they have paintings bought
by the interior decorators working with the architects who in turn engage the so
called art consultants who comb the scene for cheap works of art but colorful
and enticing from the camp organizers who make some bulk buying deals with the
consultants, who they know for sure would sell them for double price before the
architect hand over them to the interior designers.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdbHyy6m9aE2bHd2mbJUSqS5UppQ9-6Lq2kAA2X_WOTDELhN41s2FvU3FsyDf17I4DMxteZmNuukAQZuhnRwghyLshYsj8IXi_M_K8-0E5BfwFN_6aX7OkdcwFeNurveqzE8EZK7weTDhO5lBzCvU2_rFPIyQNq63oIoK2Xmq5LnV-1ereSnmMUkOFVOE/s400/hotel%20fair%202.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="400" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdbHyy6m9aE2bHd2mbJUSqS5UppQ9-6Lq2kAA2X_WOTDELhN41s2FvU3FsyDf17I4DMxteZmNuukAQZuhnRwghyLshYsj8IXi_M_K8-0E5BfwFN_6aX7OkdcwFeNurveqzE8EZK7weTDhO5lBzCvU2_rFPIyQNq63oIoK2Xmq5LnV-1ereSnmMUkOFVOE/s320/hotel%20fair%202.webp" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">If you look at this scenario having an art fair in a
posh hotel room is not a bad idea though it is a funny idea; some sort of self-devaluation
for higher earning. A posh hotel room, notionally replicates the desires of
good life and an aspiration for having the same comforts on a daily basis back
at home. So the temporary nature of the hotel room where expensive works of art
displayed for sale is emblematic of the permanent desire in the minds of the
upper class, affluent class and the aspiring creamy layer of the middle class.
When they see a work of art inside a hotel room, they project their own living
space to the given space inside a hotel room and see how it would look in their
own spaces. Rest is the matter of financial exchange. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Private galleries simply re-invent themselves in
obliging to participate in a hotel art fair of this kind. The role of a private
gallery was exactly the same in the old days. The white cube concept of a
private gallery exudes the idea of a neutral space where a work of art would be
presented whose intrinsic qualities are not compromised by any chance by the surrounding
material conditions. The white space showered with white or yellow lights
create a ‘valueless neutral space’ for the art buyers. The space around the
work of art is neutralized by the distance given between two works. The neutral
space where the art collectors, buyers, investors and art lovers projected their
ideas about spatial enjoyment of the displayed items. It gave them space for
intellectual and imaginative negotiations with the works of art.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTn5yiLbD0lUXeir-uQtMUyc1J-mgSSXqX8LR0DlS6JrQdHD5tP9zMcbHw_uR4hl6sHdMAWaEArRGXIXtDXnWTNkTzfL2vz6MblJMp1Wd5P9-wfxuvlf7qwRK3osMh3oUo-mN8c-Kn3vGFqCVcx1pN3D-W1VzzRtPR-uHsIyV4AtEdGzQEVXN703KLl-E/s1280/hotel%20fair%203.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="752" data-original-width="1280" height="188" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTn5yiLbD0lUXeir-uQtMUyc1J-mgSSXqX8LR0DlS6JrQdHD5tP9zMcbHw_uR4hl6sHdMAWaEArRGXIXtDXnWTNkTzfL2vz6MblJMp1Wd5P9-wfxuvlf7qwRK3osMh3oUo-mN8c-Kn3vGFqCVcx1pN3D-W1VzzRtPR-uHsIyV4AtEdGzQEVXN703KLl-E/s320/hotel%20fair%203.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">When the character of the art market changed thanks to
various domestic and international financial and cultural reasons, the white space
in the white cube became a thing of past. A gallery space deliberately
contrived to make it a twisted space became the fad. Often a large space with a
high ceiling is chosen for a gallery. The spatial dimensions also showed how
the dimensions of art works had also been changed. This huge space was divided
by partitions that made the space within a complex structure. The walls were
given different colors, slightly giving away the possibility of them
replicating the interiors of the rich homes that went for differently colored
and organized interiors. Art moved from the realm of the art viewers to the
ones who could afford to own large real estate and bungalows where huge works
of art could be displayed against fancy looking backgrounds. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Market was changing fast. Just before the pandemic
years, the galleries cut down the number of exhibitions or they started showing
together on a particular day of the week or month. This was either to cut the
cost or to get the rich and the affluent in maximum numbers in one place so
that they could be spared from the hassles of travelling to the same district
to watch different shows in different times. While that was happening,
simultaneously the idea of a viewing room was also forwarded by the gallerists.
A viewing room is a cosy room with a comfortable sofa and adequate lighting
where the clients could see different works of art before them brought in by
the gallery attendant as per the demands of the buyer. It is more like going to
a textile shop and asking to show different shirts or sarees from the racks. The
owner of the gallery sat with them and entertained them with endearing stories
about the art and the artists shown before them.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUKjEmfe6z2FPKvCYUJ8aYIs9Hx72IflzcSWeTdQLX8u4bswkSv66QkTT9fvgovMbJchVzx9zHUUMBUCOoGA_Ct-lgYNSeo3FgId562jqiVFaK-6hP3e-dSp8snOaVqgAJSvJBFUqwNdMMTTATOWNHy_THajmfkrRJUarJXReENaVZFB8_wgDz58RXSlw/s714/hotel%20fair%205.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-size: 14pt; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="714" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUKjEmfe6z2FPKvCYUJ8aYIs9Hx72IflzcSWeTdQLX8u4bswkSv66QkTT9fvgovMbJchVzx9zHUUMBUCOoGA_Ct-lgYNSeo3FgId562jqiVFaK-6hP3e-dSp8snOaVqgAJSvJBFUqwNdMMTTATOWNHy_THajmfkrRJUarJXReENaVZFB8_wgDz58RXSlw/s320/hotel%20fair%205.jpg" width="215" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /><o:p><br /></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">When everything fails and when the rich and affluent
refuse to come to see works of art at your gallery what are you going to do?
You will take the works of art to the rich and the affluent. On lazy Sundays, upon
appointment the gallerists started sending works of art to the buyers’ homes
for perusal. Wherever the rich went the art followed; they opened shops in the
high-end malls, shopping arcades, airports, lounges, farm house areas, five-star
hotel lobbies and so on. With the art fair going to the hotel rooms the art
market seems to have come to a full circle. I am not surprised because of that.
If the rich could have works of art in their washrooms, why can’t fair organizers
have them displayed inside the loos of the rooms? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">JohnyML<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>(Image source Net. All images for illustration purpose only)</b> </p>JohnyMLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854530824953334475noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8872146559118935939.post-9784552804198304602023-08-27T17:52:00.001+05:302023-08-27T17:52:12.413+05:30Displaced Targets and Soaring Ambitions of Artists<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisNsqDY9msl5fVo57fqHZhgYTL7POXn0mVNjkihfNZKKQjkvaJcCyyLYKL7Hh8cSJW28pBtyTUGnSHqSZj8_CyBu2BqcRN_M2CoYOABPPsBCDUSvtQHfoxw3r02D1xsVtDPFx6TEHzCmDx_WjoDdifn3kZ6VSO9Si3vKy0hWWDax1CGvRVNatpIydQ4vw/s474/Lkab%205.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="319" data-original-width="474" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisNsqDY9msl5fVo57fqHZhgYTL7POXn0mVNjkihfNZKKQjkvaJcCyyLYKL7Hh8cSJW28pBtyTUGnSHqSZj8_CyBu2BqcRN_M2CoYOABPPsBCDUSvtQHfoxw3r02D1xsVtDPFx6TEHzCmDx_WjoDdifn3kZ6VSO9Si3vKy0hWWDax1CGvRVNatpIydQ4vw/s320/Lkab%205.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">There is an interesting scene in ‘Modern Times’, the
iconic film by Charlie Chaplin. With no other means left to survive, goaded by
his girlfriend, the Tramp, character played by Chaplin becomes a waiter in a
restaurant where music and dance presented on special occasions attract many
people. New Year comes and the restaurant is filled with merry makers. He is
about to serve a person who has ordered some chicken and wine. Suddenly the
clock chimes twelve and it is New Year and everyone erupts in celebration.
Confetti flies, music blares and the diminutive figure of Chaplin is submerged
in the waves of humanity on its feet. He reaches his client with the tray and
another wave of people takes him away. The charade raises a lot of laughter among
the audience.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In the galleries when I stand before the works of art
done by young people, proudly displayed in unimaginably ambitious scales, I
remember the abovementioned scene from ‘Modern Times’. They are about to reach
their destination, a point in aesthetical maturity and confidence, but something
else sweeps them away. For an artist, satisfaction comes in two different
forms; one, in the form of money and the other, in the form appreciation. Money
is blind; it lacks discretion, most often. In art, money floods in the least
expected terrains, causing cascades and landslides in the hillsides of
morality. Artists are just human beings covered in the garb of idealism. Who doesn’t
want a good flooding of money? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTGNTF_HA_dTglAdI4ASt8FEasIz_gXHSU1tP08I1H2GYMXkGgKahBSGvSO_n1jSFHFvVvbZvv-L1y-jJzF1BYKAX7mGjoVF-DnjdLDo2v3xDedgY_n_VanX835v3Th_v_m6YEhAbgwaKRw8v5Sr1W6js5hgsxgM2JkBXNdnoPKe4kmk-uWaiuKkUal98/s825/Lkab%201.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="510" data-original-width="825" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTGNTF_HA_dTglAdI4ASt8FEasIz_gXHSU1tP08I1H2GYMXkGgKahBSGvSO_n1jSFHFvVvbZvv-L1y-jJzF1BYKAX7mGjoVF-DnjdLDo2v3xDedgY_n_VanX835v3Th_v_m6YEhAbgwaKRw8v5Sr1W6js5hgsxgM2JkBXNdnoPKe4kmk-uWaiuKkUal98/s320/Lkab%201.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">They are there, some works on the walls indicate. You feel
a sense of excitement. You are about to find out a new artist from among the
many aspirants who vie for the top position. Then you start imagining about the
artist as a highly skilled, highly informed, highly vocal and highly savvy
person. You think about him or her as someone who could sustain the level of
excitement that he or she has just generated in you. As you move on you see more
works that make you believe that you have really got gold on the walls. Your
instincts are sharp and your fingers itch to key in some good words about those
works. Suddenly something happens; the artist slips and falls in her aesthetics.
From consistency she has just moved on to capriciousness. From determination,
she has moved to the realm of doubts.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Could it be over confidence? That one could create works
of art in different styles; some in contemporary flat style, some in
impressionistic mode and some other in futuristic and cubistic. Is that the
flair of the artist in handling various art styles or the lack of understanding
about one’s own integrated intellectual and aesthetical growth that is displayed
naked there on the walls? I am not sure. The artist in question looks extremely
confident and she doesn’t have an iota of doubt about her varying styles. In
one of the recent experiences that I had in a gallery, the artist looked
extremely sure about her works done in different styles; a group show created
by a solo artist. She is educated in one of the good art schools in London. And
it shows in her ambitious paintings. But I just couldn’t understand why
suddenly a series of paintings that are absolutely different in style and
approach.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6buG0Onq7nVBg7fPuI8TLVC5JPo6lynaKxJMAl7vI-sqYoaijoKoJ8SgUzjg8nC4uRoE_LGBe-9BdmikYUuj3bz78qpXufNaVra8DZZ6bw18Swz6br1EioV2y8Y3LV8gHCNLyfPj4HslKO05Pr9fjEP4bpi5IARtBIUtSVhfjwO5eWcgF1MfxgpjrcAY/s1455/lkab%202.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="825" data-original-width="1455" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6buG0Onq7nVBg7fPuI8TLVC5JPo6lynaKxJMAl7vI-sqYoaijoKoJ8SgUzjg8nC4uRoE_LGBe-9BdmikYUuj3bz78qpXufNaVra8DZZ6bw18Swz6br1EioV2y8Y3LV8gHCNLyfPj4HslKO05Pr9fjEP4bpi5IARtBIUtSVhfjwO5eWcgF1MfxgpjrcAY/s320/lkab%202.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">I knew that I need not look for an explanation from
the artist. There were flowery words written about her by other people in her
brochure. Besides, there was a statement by herself in words exuding overconfidence.
I have seen such artists. They are child prodigies. Unlike Picasso who too was
a child prodigy (an autistic person also, also revealed by one of his grandchildren,
Marina Picasso), these prodigies are brought up in secured illusions in which
they are the numero uno of art. Their proclivity in creating art is all about
the skills shown in drawing something life-like. They draw and paint throughout
their school days and are taken to various platforms where they come out as winners.
This winning spree gives them the confidence to join an art school where their
notions of art are shattered beyond recognition. By the time they gather
themselves from the shock, they would have finished their graduation.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Out there in the world, with a fancy degree in art from
an illustrious institution they find themselves in a liminal space where their
naturalistic skills refuse to budge but their educational qualifications deny
the entry of such skills in their works. So they have to find a midway. They
try to do art that partly shows their naturalistic skills and their newly
acquired modern and contemporary aesthetics. They remain like oil and water in their
art which rest of the world knows but they themselves never acknowledge. Their egos
are further boosted up when their works on display are bought by their wealthy
relatives and friends. Once such favors are done they are irrevocably lost in
the wilderness of misunderstood art. Thanks to their wealth and influence they
are often treated as artists in the public domain and you could see their
pictures along with the political leaders, corporate bigwigs and art patrons! <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdll2fh6J7viHsa0_j57Uj6DxfR78FQu2NS7JyL04tvnKLF31qFHmmNJnoXce7EwkveEiXTuGL8iB0ctaOTFPK-hbLKyJh2dKNamhfdHnFYCsje6V5_Hjx77QWkH6L5RKz_DKi-OWrIiF7IGleSsQpKVgBFAbSaxheY0gK_elfD1JfbeDNAUYekCsjjhY/s1200/blog%202.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdll2fh6J7viHsa0_j57Uj6DxfR78FQu2NS7JyL04tvnKLF31qFHmmNJnoXce7EwkveEiXTuGL8iB0ctaOTFPK-hbLKyJh2dKNamhfdHnFYCsje6V5_Hjx77QWkH6L5RKz_DKi-OWrIiF7IGleSsQpKVgBFAbSaxheY0gK_elfD1JfbeDNAUYekCsjjhY/s320/blog%202.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In another exhibition hall I came across another
artist whose art is informed by the theories of feminism. In the wall text I found
the artist introducing herself as an architect whose passion lies in making paintings.
Somewhere I happened to see someone saying that the artist in her was awakened
when the world was locked down during the pandemic years. Many during the pandemic
years found out that they had an artistic side and when the world started calling
itself a post-pandemic world they left their art behind and thought that the
viruses at some point in their lives would give them another chance to be artists.
But there were many others, for no reason decided to stick to their newly found
self of an artist. Such people could cause more damage than repair when they
try to exhibit the artistic side of their personalities.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The feminist artist’s lines, colors, images and the
whole makeup of the painting betrayed her self-taught status. A little bit of
Gaugin here and a little bit of Sher Ghil there. Some Manjit Bawa here and some
Arpana Caur there. When none of them is around there were some elements from
Gogi Saroj Pal. It happens, I told myself and moved on taking interest in her
works. If she tries she could reach her destination, I thought. Then the Chaplin
moment came before my eyes. She suddenly presented a Durga and Lion, a Shiv and
Parvati and what not from the mythologies! Her secular thoughts seemed to have
a sudden confrontation with the mood of the times. If there are no mythological
works what would happen to my art, what would people think about me, she must
have thought. Result is disastrous.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOQg7NGVLLeauJX9cpGofOM8Nk53hTXD9tJpqSfIcX-cvok5jMR1BaZAKrOk5L3OxJt6fp7O6UdwfvKRD3YpHhGWXKLm5EbYDvj0DayQHXNfabnXw-hJwnKe1atT47vYVhXr0mnr9W8n9ZAIB44kECricSwtjfi9ZjfUam7ANP5QQuhL-6BTBN_BR2VyA/s1024/Lkab3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="604" data-original-width="1024" height="189" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOQg7NGVLLeauJX9cpGofOM8Nk53hTXD9tJpqSfIcX-cvok5jMR1BaZAKrOk5L3OxJt6fp7O6UdwfvKRD3YpHhGWXKLm5EbYDvj0DayQHXNfabnXw-hJwnKe1atT47vYVhXr0mnr9W8n9ZAIB44kECricSwtjfi9ZjfUam7ANP5QQuhL-6BTBN_BR2VyA/s320/Lkab3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">For most of the artists these days Chaplin’s fate in
Modern Times seems to be an unavoidable existence. They want to reach their
potential clients. But they live in a time of flux. Everyone is up on their
feet and making merry. Artists struggle to reach their clients but they are
carried away by other concerns externally imposed on them. They move away from
the target and hit elsewhere. It is a blind charade where one could stick the
tail into the mouth of a donkey. Donkey in the picture doesn’t mind that
because he knows his tail had fallen long back. The blind artists try and
become a laughing stock before the informed audience. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><b>-JohnyML</b><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><b>(All the images are from the Net and they serve only illustration purpose. They do not have anything to do with the content of the article)</b></span></p>JohnyMLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854530824953334475noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8872146559118935939.post-29068864359685666822023-08-25T16:23:00.003+05:302023-08-25T16:26:45.537+05:30Art Critics as Vendors and Artists as Clients<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT1YO9l0I70mBed78_pclDRKKaaKYCb90QjOQmRT0QQIFNsTY6F6V9SpSQ695OQlisspJrgRwo0v6qRsq-VodbYp6ILclJtmq3mrnt4_iH7EUMHTOUp-zbqeefSxwhGeiKZpzYBdlKcrCroPTIZVh4MMDOc27BTNe1c-5064bH3HgFbVlOcwCmH-_qbwM/s1255/blog%207.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="837" data-original-width="1255" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT1YO9l0I70mBed78_pclDRKKaaKYCb90QjOQmRT0QQIFNsTY6F6V9SpSQ695OQlisspJrgRwo0v6qRsq-VodbYp6ILclJtmq3mrnt4_iH7EUMHTOUp-zbqeefSxwhGeiKZpzYBdlKcrCroPTIZVh4MMDOc27BTNe1c-5064bH3HgFbVlOcwCmH-_qbwM/s320/blog%207.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>(source internet)<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In Mumbai, at the famous Jehangir Art Galleries
Tuesdays are busy with exhibition openings. The galleries look like a packed
parking lot where car waits bumper to bumper to find a space to squeeze in. One
lot of artists bring down their works from the wall (still an easy task as they
just need to pluck the threads off the hooks from the wooden channels.
Conventional to the core, Jehangir exudes old world charm and nonsense as the
authorities do not allow the artists to stick labels on the walls, let alone
drilling them on to the walls to give a decent and contemporary looking display)
and the other lot goes up; something that has been on for so many decades with
an exception of those couple of pandemic years. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In the auditorium hall, often reserved for big scale shows
with money bags to back them up, I see this panel text written by one of my old
friends for a solo exhibition. I cursorily go through the text and it says a
lot about the abstract works in display and at the same time they do not say
anything particularly. That is the fate of those blurb writers who want to
produce something out of nothing. Later in the evening, while I am at the
gallery number one for a young artist’s solo exhibition where I have been invited
as a guest of honor, a young lady is introduced to me as a budding writer. I do
not know what the interlocutor has told her about me but I am surprised by her
first question itself. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“Who writes the texts that accompany the paintings?”
she asks. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I look around because I know that there are no texts to
go with the works displayed there in the gallery. So I tell her there are no
texts here. She throws a glance at the works. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“Not here. I am talking about there, in the Auditorium
Gallery,” she says. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I do not want to tell her that I know the person who
has written those words. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“Those are flowery words but confusing and I know they
are intended to be so,” she continues, “but I want to know who writes such
texts.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I want to take her question in a different way. So
tell her that it must be by someone who is well versed in art and art history.
He could be an art critic or a curator even. There are writers who specialize in
writing about art. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“How do such people get their clients?” she surprises
me with the word client. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Now I am cautious. Clients. This lady who is just a new
entrant in the art scene, may be an aspiring writer or a cub reporter from one
of those rags published from the city, seems to be very confident about her
selection of words. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“Good artists know who are the best writers,” I just
tell her bluntly. “They don’t need to look for ‘clients’,” I emphasized. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“Oh, that means they must be having good social
networking and wonderful PR skills,” she just doesn’t understand my mood. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I tell her that a good art writer never goes after the
artists, on the contrary the artists seek them out. “I don’t seek any artists
who could be my potential ‘clients’,” I try to be sarcastic. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">But I fail to floor her with my sarcasm. She is dead
serious about her premature knowledge about art. “I am a writer,” she says. I
wish she added ‘budding’ or ‘aspiring’ before the word writer. But she is
determined to be within the spell of her own stupidity. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“I want to get clients for my writing,” she goes on. I
feel like walking away but in that situation that may look rude because she
hasn’t lost politeness in her tone. She seems to have clubbed politeness with
confidence in a peculiar way. Irritation creeps slowly within me. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“You may try with the artists,” I tell her. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">She looks fuddled even if she has consumed only a cup
of tea. As it is Jehangir Art Gallery people keep coming in. They click selfies
before the works of art and generally waft through before the paintings. We
look at them.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“That means you need to wait for the clients,” she
persists. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“Art is not that easy stuff to write about dear lady,”
I tell her. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">She frowns and walks off. It looks like she wants to
retort. Then I see her coming back after a few minutes when I turn my attention
to other people. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“Sorry, I did not know about you. They told me that
you are a great art critic and historian,” she says apologetically.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIgD0GBLztY2vC7SuW6H-qcK5jCgAv4aQjtvB3Ng_Fq1eQHkXKMuSSLoCQqnofX0d1zpBQeiTWTcwL29fxtX5bNGr_80Ilbowq1SyJ0j7OaVkR-P087T7qm_Z9dUCtrUpgAeVQeTLz0Q4xZ8a1HBCJ7QlH1IW-pK31nTtyq8Fb_mfd1NEHwKZ4GQm3RDQ/s670/blog%204.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="670" height="191" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIgD0GBLztY2vC7SuW6H-qcK5jCgAv4aQjtvB3Ng_Fq1eQHkXKMuSSLoCQqnofX0d1zpBQeiTWTcwL29fxtX5bNGr_80Ilbowq1SyJ0j7OaVkR-P087T7qm_Z9dUCtrUpgAeVQeTLz0Q4xZ8a1HBCJ7QlH1IW-pK31nTtyq8Fb_mfd1NEHwKZ4GQm3RDQ/s320/blog%204.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It is raining outside. I go to watch the Mumbai
Monsoon that refuses to whimper away. Standing there I ruminate. Things have
not changed yet. I remember the early days of my career as an art critic. I had
gone to Delhi to become a fulltime art critic. Visiting galleries, artists’ studios,
spending long hours with them, looking at them working in their studios,
engaging with fellow writers, taking feedback from the readers, getting
rubbished by the elders, gaining access to the younger lot etc. were part of
growing up. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">There were a lot of involvement. There was no
reluctance to engage with art or artists. We never called the artists clients
and artists never called us the same in turn. Artists and art critics never
looked at the art buyers and collectors as potential clients. Everyone was a
part of the general ecosystem of art. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">What has brought all the difference, I thought? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Is it money market? Money is a reality and so is the
market. They are interlinked. However, that couldn’t be the sole reason for this
change in attitude of the youngsters. Somewhere down the line, devaluation of
the artistic/creative engagement between the artists and writers has happened,
I realize. Now they belong to different continents. Artists talk to artists;
there too successful artists talk to successful artists and the struggling ones
talk to their counterparts. If at all the financially successful artists talk
to the still struggling ones they patronize them immensely. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXRaXvg-fFHhY1ukfIo4YrCVsYZYuON-DJ1rUSi7InWIjkPZB8wDrW3Uym7uT9mNDd4p28rFNw91ZxtBW20DXAG3i39hOca_TC3CYW76sfvb06IsNMOCv4X7NGrRLKVTmcAXFTetH69mKSILQWjM6qkp2AlNuaMeKH_thRTknskYYC-ZcbmxNygipLP-k/s1200/blog%202.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXRaXvg-fFHhY1ukfIo4YrCVsYZYuON-DJ1rUSi7InWIjkPZB8wDrW3Uym7uT9mNDd4p28rFNw91ZxtBW20DXAG3i39hOca_TC3CYW76sfvb06IsNMOCv4X7NGrRLKVTmcAXFTetH69mKSILQWjM6qkp2AlNuaMeKH_thRTknskYYC-ZcbmxNygipLP-k/s320/blog%202.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Art critics also have lost their integrity, boldness
and patience. They all want to be in the bandwagon and make money. True,
everyone needs money in an environment where money speaks. But there is no direct
connection between art, aesthetics and money. The monetary part comes when the
work of art enters the market. Till a work enters the market and attract buyers
for its intrinsic values, it is just a canvas with some colors (or any other
medium). Medium is message, said Marshall MacLuhan. Now medium is massage also.
Many artists make use of the intrinsic quality of the medium a virtue and eke
meaning out of it. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">There is no problem in it either. Art critics somehow
fails to see it. They want to say good things about the artist and leave art
behind or aside. Most often, if you look at the reports on art, it is more
about the artist than the art in question. Somewhere even the art writers and
critics have compromised. So they could talk about artists as clients. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">May be the lady who talked to me was more truthful than
the pretentious art critics. She, for the lack of other words talked about the
artists as clients. But art critics, even after having all those words at their
disposal, still call their clients artists!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">-JohnyML<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>JohnyMLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854530824953334475noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8872146559118935939.post-88973975535379738872023-08-08T17:12:00.000+05:302023-08-08T17:12:30.456+05:30What do you Think When you Think of Writing About Art <p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizzbYPlPJj9OP6tXQK28goj_Ca80_fyKKYPX2qRFt-RkAUcpxCV2lkqc36P2WVGWsIx1iyAezko0SHaG_w0Zo-cbMcdYBUJPDSY6huHZc27POLtS8M2b_m_TyrQrMlqXnEDzcGEZDWjO6rR_EAz_B6oWesn6K980PQID5QTuWsk7ylATXZjvqr803TJzo/s1200/gallery%201.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="1200" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizzbYPlPJj9OP6tXQK28goj_Ca80_fyKKYPX2qRFt-RkAUcpxCV2lkqc36P2WVGWsIx1iyAezko0SHaG_w0Zo-cbMcdYBUJPDSY6huHZc27POLtS8M2b_m_TyrQrMlqXnEDzcGEZDWjO6rR_EAz_B6oWesn6K980PQID5QTuWsk7ylATXZjvqr803TJzo/s320/gallery%201.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;">(Pic courtesy: Google. Representational Purpose only)</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">I get invitation
to attend art exhibition openings. They come through various mediums including personal
phone calls. I hardly attend exhibition openings these days. I ask myself why
have I grown so disinterested in attending the art dos. They are the platforms
to do socializing and networking. And ironically, whenever I curate a show I
expect people to come in hoards to attend the opening. If they too grow cold towards
the openings what would be the result. Deserted galleries and lackluster inaugural
functions. No artist would like it. No gallerist would like to see her gallery
echoing her own sighs on the opening day.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">Recently, a
senior art critic asked me why I did not do the blog entries anymore. Writer’s
block? she asked. I hadn’t thought about such a scenario. I had gone through
such phases when words stood aloof. I don’t find myself in that situation now.
I need a white page, a Microsoft Word page so that I could key in my thoughts
without a break. There is no arrogance in saying this. My daily training has helped
me achieve this. Yet, I do not write that much these days. Some kind of
lethargy? Don’t I feel anymore the need to purge myself of my winding thoughts?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">I want my
writings to be clear and lucid. A reader should have easy access not only to the
text but also to the content. Someone should not stand before my writing as if
he was standing before a thick and tall concrete wall infested with graffiti and
rhetoric. Easy access is a much mistaken concept. Most of the people think that
accessible things are less valuable. You make something so complex that the
very inaccessibility makes people look at it in awe. Words and ideas become
like celebrities and VIPs locked up in fortresses made up of concrete and
security measures. They come out once in a while to wave at the hapless admirers
who scream at a single glace, the spreading of hands and the dimpled smile. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLp1PhU2KZQBsUb71QbOtGKU8X_Hb0QLaVDA3o49lHwrWP6_tQNWpoMUff--4NHkpBkRNAAla2zc7Y9eEKEWsif3bgGdBJGhIQF74EBTmd2ae2rf8yaq7NKkRJ_G1boacR5Bxkw8EYiwQ0akgjt1Yb7E17STE5owsd873qeH0mpulf_YcFMrx2cBKGFZM/s840/gallery%202.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="560" data-original-width="840" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLp1PhU2KZQBsUb71QbOtGKU8X_Hb0QLaVDA3o49lHwrWP6_tQNWpoMUff--4NHkpBkRNAAla2zc7Y9eEKEWsif3bgGdBJGhIQF74EBTmd2ae2rf8yaq7NKkRJ_G1boacR5Bxkw8EYiwQ0akgjt1Yb7E17STE5owsd873qeH0mpulf_YcFMrx2cBKGFZM/s320/gallery%202.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;">(Pic courtesy: Google. Representational Purpose only)</span></span></p><div><span style="font-size: x-large;">I do not
write these days because I do not see good art that often. I could ramble
around any subject for a long time but when art is before me, writing about it
becomes the most pleasurable thing in the world. Artists who come up with
pedestrian ideas and childish logic and done to death styles one cannot say
much about their art. So I keep quite. I walk in front of the galleries even
avoiding to look at their facades. They look like silent stupidity parked at turn
unattended and left to rust. One should avert the eyes from such depressing
sights.</span></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">Whenever I
see the names of artists printed on the invitation cards they look strange and
unfamiliar. True, I do not know most of them. I wistfully remember those times
when I took pains to travel to different places and studios to see young artists
working. That time has gone and the concerns that ruled artists in those times
are also have become a thing of past. Today the concerns of the artists are
different. They want to be a part of major exhibitions and international fairs.
They want to be in international residencies and art camps. They want to be in
a different world with their works. What do they address in their art, I ask myself
and find no answer. I have heard from places that the youngsters too address
the issues like migration, environmental crises, wars, poverty, human suffering
and injustice. They are not different from our generation in that sense.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">Where do
they differ and how do they differ then? I do not have any clear answer here.
Those young artists who are lauded by the private establishments that almost
monopolize the art scene in India and elsewhere project themselves as the new
age messiahs with a new language and approach. They use new materials and
contemporary technologies. May be I am too old to understand the technology in
a practical sense but I do understand their impacts in the contemporary human
life and their influence in understanding the past and shaping the future. What
I do not understand is the language that they use. They are wafer-thin and stand
only because that there are armatures and scaffolds of words around them. They
prop them up like dilapidated houses restructured by a whimsical architecture
who excels in disuse of spaces. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinfSOLYCy_D4DMTy2zIainRKchUAfKapkONJeswuTlCPr6A4UJyizymfRMwt8yNnpkqge765zWeVqktwrS0G0eMxwMCAhHsX3MD0R-O0cdYcRKh_9l8346eC4HlKujabX9oGWLzV4tbn1CgkNrVyDgZZwafBfCA4i9hX-0PQ8WGWasd8YWo7l7zUBijx4/s1600/gallery%203.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="949" data-original-width="1600" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinfSOLYCy_D4DMTy2zIainRKchUAfKapkONJeswuTlCPr6A4UJyizymfRMwt8yNnpkqge765zWeVqktwrS0G0eMxwMCAhHsX3MD0R-O0cdYcRKh_9l8346eC4HlKujabX9oGWLzV4tbn1CgkNrVyDgZZwafBfCA4i9hX-0PQ8WGWasd8YWo7l7zUBijx4/s320/gallery%203.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;">(Pic courtesy: Google. Representational Purpose only)</span></span></p><div><span style="font-size: x-large;">I am a
stranger to that. Like the international professional art critics, I could gush
over the works that are shallow by digging them deep. I could post them
regularly at the Instagram and amass followers. There is no problem in having
more followers in social media platforms and making an influencer of sorts out
of oneself. But when I think of it a sense of meaninglessness engulfs me. Why
should I see those things that are not there? Why should I over-read things
when they do not deserve reading at all? May be reading a visual text would
give you some sort of high but all the highs are not good for health. You turn
a liar, slowly and steadily.</span></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">Once I went
to an all women art camp. I went through the works that were done hastily because
it was a single day camp. Most of them had generated images that didn’t throw
up any surprises. Same vaginas, wombs, blood, bird’s nest, eggs, splayed legs,
kitchen utensils and so on. I thought, why didn’t they have any other self-image
other than the stereotypical ones. Lynda Nochlin and other feminist
theoreticians of her ilk had talked about reclaiming the female body from the
clutches of the male desires and possessiveness. That was almost sixty years
ago. The world has changed since then. How long are you going to make the same
thing, ululating the female vulva, blood and tears? <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">I ask this
question unto myself. What’s the point in saying the same thing in new mediums
and materials? Can’t there be a different lens, a different ken and a different
scale to see and measure oneself? If I say thing, I will be called a misogynist
and a chauvinist. It is not just about the female artists, it is about every other
artist. When you say the truth, they call you names. Better keep quiet. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">-JohnyML</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>JohnyMLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854530824953334475noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8872146559118935939.post-91741968664405059162023-01-18T17:04:00.004+05:302023-01-18T17:04:44.820+05:30Forbidden Truths of Nidhivan: Shine Shivan’s New Works<p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW0UyJNj7hsPmXKXa6OMAz2qqoAWRha4XliOc-9DEKrlqSAdtn7ymAfjIGmiOvVZ2bFMlUJ_1ocHhdnj7b7gM98MyQvBW0aFAE2SPvy_V9dudXLfiSHQGc-JHVrGtnw9Xh5KDpChL_QEzB4fMFwCWZWZvhaWp2k78IzAsl6G6FjWmhzTlYtgIgtFUK/s1500/ss%201.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="849" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW0UyJNj7hsPmXKXa6OMAz2qqoAWRha4XliOc-9DEKrlqSAdtn7ymAfjIGmiOvVZ2bFMlUJ_1ocHhdnj7b7gM98MyQvBW0aFAE2SPvy_V9dudXLfiSHQGc-JHVrGtnw9Xh5KDpChL_QEzB4fMFwCWZWZvhaWp2k78IzAsl6G6FjWmhzTlYtgIgtFUK/s320/ss%201.jpg" width="181" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /> (Work by Shine Shivan)</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">Reverence could
be a way to irreverence and vice versa. Deep seated devotion and observation could
lead to a sense of critical viewing of the given and also scant respect for
something in the long run could change into blind devotion. But there is
something in between, a transient zone where playfulness takes over and erases
both reverence and irreverence. Then it becomes pure play, a sort of innocent
play, a skillful re-enactment of the known and unknown alike without considering
the consequences. In transience happens the flashes of innocence pregnant with
the possibilities of subversion of the dominant narratives, which only trained
eyes could catch. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi13i1MX-yOAodSexjHhWFzeQYRzWmxDayGspI8Z1cWVYwFFYhspHUVTympXw-QSD2UDzjjkWcXYHrrafDxRf_qpWce4kTaVC8AXtCv0IYobueKB7pi1yzqHpHK-3D3mpJeH5EA_DDmyi0gu_hW4YdpscV9Pt1ywzkg9WTz-GYHxjkXhCpKHwXZJBYP/s1500/ss%2010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1064" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi13i1MX-yOAodSexjHhWFzeQYRzWmxDayGspI8Z1cWVYwFFYhspHUVTympXw-QSD2UDzjjkWcXYHrrafDxRf_qpWce4kTaVC8AXtCv0IYobueKB7pi1yzqHpHK-3D3mpJeH5EA_DDmyi0gu_hW4YdpscV9Pt1ywzkg9WTz-GYHxjkXhCpKHwXZJBYP/s320/ss%2010.jpg" width="227" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p>Wide eyed
Krishna figures multiplies in the matrix of common mythology when Shine Shivan,
the artist who masquerades himself in curious guises, breezes through the
historically and culturally marked out locations where mythology indistinguishably
manifests in the daily rituals of the common people. Nidhivan, the forest of
Tulsi in Vrindavan, famed to be the place of Krishna’s eternal erotic dances
with innumerable consorts becomes Shine Shivan’s point of departure for the
body of works comes under the common title, Nidhivan.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ6Fkka_jcuIf1oh3lVh4q-pKz3QgygBD86_CPuIOHoHDl2MYmlAL1r6z1iCclD2SqcIQp7huelouMh_uOuSMDw7C_5x0YakDv5KJJZaXqMdGz_A-0FcJGbHBuaoWSYgxY9bs_f6FXBnjYJEegyDuzg9NfEByCcnDtGsjGPyVUtNR_YpbPYasGYJGR/s1500/ss%205.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1029" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ6Fkka_jcuIf1oh3lVh4q-pKz3QgygBD86_CPuIOHoHDl2MYmlAL1r6z1iCclD2SqcIQp7huelouMh_uOuSMDw7C_5x0YakDv5KJJZaXqMdGz_A-0FcJGbHBuaoWSYgxY9bs_f6FXBnjYJEegyDuzg9NfEByCcnDtGsjGPyVUtNR_YpbPYasGYJGR/s320/ss%205.jpg" width="220" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">When the
devotee becomes one with the object of devotion both of them assume the same
bhava, nature, expression and trait, and this oneness is a trope that the
artist has used in building up a set of narratives that is culturally shared
and has become the collective unconscious of the people. Krishna and the characters
around him therefore assume the stylized facial expression of the artist or the
artist adopts the generic facial traits of Krishna as depicted in various traditional
art forms including Nathdwara paintings and Indian miniatures. The cumulative
aesthetical outcome in making these Krishna figures is an unforgettable
ensemble of self portraits involved in a homo-erotic or narcissistic game.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUCWN2GO-WhmmQRHGIyB5JsjdIzKFjQ-WqD7tB2ImgD_1jNQlU67Mk_axBwtp2ZZvsTxOofPeX5jdi_i0fDZpyUob9jHMdONQT5_gcSwA4JWk4PiThZ2U8jgytN9Y0_nwWRbcKf97BARO6b0JNQfVAnA4fabYscLHAnzDZuX5Vg3FNke56K8nkv3Ip/s1500/ss%204.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1050" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUCWN2GO-WhmmQRHGIyB5JsjdIzKFjQ-WqD7tB2ImgD_1jNQlU67Mk_axBwtp2ZZvsTxOofPeX5jdi_i0fDZpyUob9jHMdONQT5_gcSwA4JWk4PiThZ2U8jgytN9Y0_nwWRbcKf97BARO6b0JNQfVAnA4fabYscLHAnzDZuX5Vg3FNke56K8nkv3Ip/s320/ss%204.jpg" width="224" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">The works
in Nidhivan, for those people who hover around the surficial aesthetical appeal
may not look subversive and critical of anything. However, the mild game of subversion
shows up when the works are seen against heterosexual and permissible dalliance
hailed in the popular mythological and devotional narratives. The emergence of
this surreptitious critique is totally depended on the critical views that one
can afford regarding the allowance of homo erotic interpretations within the
dominant cultural fabric. In a crude political scenario where populist religious
monoliths suppresses all the possible lateral readings and understanding, the
artistic interventions become tricky and dangerous. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6J33L6DZwcPgfu6Daijy8dk5H5CotFLzzFNIYq6tOMuxPDmY2fMF3U5S8H0ebvqd5F2ulMMGswMfS_ZsOtANo0tCXpwexymnob60YxR4wIsw3q9xlYfNFkpA2Uo0NjjGiUG-f3LGK2XEl72x652tNfJDekBCWzdIMEgIfBBZcpFTma4o7z4IQEqP8/s1500/ss3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="859" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6J33L6DZwcPgfu6Daijy8dk5H5CotFLzzFNIYq6tOMuxPDmY2fMF3U5S8H0ebvqd5F2ulMMGswMfS_ZsOtANo0tCXpwexymnob60YxR4wIsw3q9xlYfNFkpA2Uo0NjjGiUG-f3LGK2XEl72x652tNfJDekBCWzdIMEgIfBBZcpFTma4o7z4IQEqP8/s320/ss3.jpg" width="183" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">Resorting to
allegorical presentations of the popular stories or retelling of the mythologies
in an absolutely non-provocative manner could provide a safe interface for subversive
narratives. In his works Shine Shivan makes these cute and endearing images as
operative tools so that the viewers fall into the set trap of the familiar and
the strange allurement of the presentation to the point of buying them even for
worshipping. Its from this point of identification of the devotee with Shine
Shivan’s works that the flap doors of subversion get activated, may be through
an interpretative literature like this one. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxMdWC_56oMpxlwl2xWxIwq_y5hI-w19tTY_WAB3qJkP3efJRIfYdp20PunmqHHB3xFUAxouTqVAqkWe92OolsCNcXU34xwpXUhErs1Hy2LQbpzcww1jZ5ggTks3A0Puq8AIUZVgNotbhvpfOk9SwAOr9zys_VMjUva6HVC2qEhb-iDRq-nRJZnqpa/s1490/ss2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1490" data-original-width="740" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxMdWC_56oMpxlwl2xWxIwq_y5hI-w19tTY_WAB3qJkP3efJRIfYdp20PunmqHHB3xFUAxouTqVAqkWe92OolsCNcXU34xwpXUhErs1Hy2LQbpzcww1jZ5ggTks3A0Puq8AIUZVgNotbhvpfOk9SwAOr9zys_VMjUva6HVC2qEhb-iDRq-nRJZnqpa/s320/ss2.jpg" width="159" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">Why do Krishna,
his consorts, friends and other male and female characters resemble one another?
Why do they keep the same facial expression? These questions should find echoes
in the very act of looking and seeing. But they remain unasked because Shine
Shivan through his painterly and graphic skills keeps the images closer to the
traditional renditions of such figures. Their beauty and erotic drive are not
compromised and there is always a constant reminder that they are true to the
traditional narratives. Even the colors that the artist has deliberately chosen,
reds, different shades of saffron and brown, black and blue, are all seen in
the textual detailing of Krishna and his consorts <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in the popular literature. Even the flora and
fauna are depicted the way they should be. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7Hl9CMOJxF7QSmaM1qnTAT7ok4OwCElDzxuxunBkqa0MqFqANpiS5GYO7XMOYWYrsvxOyj4-HliK-tgikQmNgn4RLY-nZ1IcXdB_5tNxnRl1XyAmoPm4yrEFAOEy13fYJIZ1LQrHJAIkRkExYnPs08RRGUzDVEqmh5mweoFdnUfDSRVzrjIIOBXPu/s1500/ss%207.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1037" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7Hl9CMOJxF7QSmaM1qnTAT7ok4OwCElDzxuxunBkqa0MqFqANpiS5GYO7XMOYWYrsvxOyj4-HliK-tgikQmNgn4RLY-nZ1IcXdB_5tNxnRl1XyAmoPm4yrEFAOEy13fYJIZ1LQrHJAIkRkExYnPs08RRGUzDVEqmh5mweoFdnUfDSRVzrjIIOBXPu/s320/ss%207.jpg" width="221" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">The
authenticity of these renderings is further accentuated when one sees the
statement that explains how the artist had stayed in the Nidhivan region and
studied the local presentations of the Krishna Katha. This adherence to the
source adds to the allurement of the trapdoor, of tradition and convention.
Each story of Krishna’s games from the local lore is chosen to give his
paintings the desired authenticity. The artistic cleverness, however conveys
the visual intentions when he sheds the textual baggage one by one and brings
the protagonists to a pair in embrace. The multiplicity of the heterosexual
orgy becomes a homoerotic intimacy, love and care for each other that subverts
the normative and affirms the critique in the subtextual level. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMDy-Ugf7bI-2lcj3JjfI1LOmEsi9rdKGEXPfZZn3dIHCmyaICgw21D1-bvQvgtGsztjuvP7deyHydo0gJrr4n1seKfPz9_sUw2HyZHOwmEIBOXGJynT1fqC29IIgNTu2vW5z3rnNNdEsajnjD_N1-b-6F0qY6IEkGYYGv8EolVfwjsTs15Ov4wyme/s1500/ss%208.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1044" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMDy-Ugf7bI-2lcj3JjfI1LOmEsi9rdKGEXPfZZn3dIHCmyaICgw21D1-bvQvgtGsztjuvP7deyHydo0gJrr4n1seKfPz9_sUw2HyZHOwmEIBOXGJynT1fqC29IIgNTu2vW5z3rnNNdEsajnjD_N1-b-6F0qY6IEkGYYGv8EolVfwjsTs15Ov4wyme/s320/ss%208.jpg" width="223" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">The choice
of Kaliya Daman and Govardhanodharan, two popular stories related to Krishna
from the Nidhivan region is important in Shine Shivan’s works. They are two
strong metaphors for homo erotic arousal and its ultimate relieving after a
prolonged play. Krishna lifts the lofty hill on the tip of his small finger. And
Kaliya is a vicious serpent that needs enough thrashing so that it could eject Halahal,
the strongest poison. In both the cases Krishna does the act of lifting and
thrashing; perhaps an extremely suggestive presentation of not only homoeroticism
but also autoeroticism. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoVOYfX8cVs_mIji_hnEvrGUcgFM52j4LPk4X8TuXBQ_n_vQpGB6gYoTPIyoOLpszmdGEke8jn67Li4gLmG9kIQJOdxILcRJ7DcUlprDz0B1tbRE2Tsai59TU-HuONKl4aylVqwcYItrbxJ0JsIjmgA32oF-AsJPAXC6M7thY1pWVoRuIWyZ0gCXhw/s1500/ss%206.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1042" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoVOYfX8cVs_mIji_hnEvrGUcgFM52j4LPk4X8TuXBQ_n_vQpGB6gYoTPIyoOLpszmdGEke8jn67Li4gLmG9kIQJOdxILcRJ7DcUlprDz0B1tbRE2Tsai59TU-HuONKl4aylVqwcYItrbxJ0JsIjmgA32oF-AsJPAXC6M7thY1pWVoRuIWyZ0gCXhw/s320/ss%206.jpg" width="222" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXW0tD5OOtrsPw8VNpytsI6ZmO_dcig-OsT0gzvk6Oo-waPZOZgPap9BetymxOl08LTCUuCm_VicPWtikuf8gMvXvA1jq-PdvLInOSOwT7h4t9E6u_NTE4ajZ0P6uXGhmaMaM5N0PVaw5TXGls3euJ_AmpYiVqNJuw9GsbKSWF4m4fRg9BaIloFegZ/s1500/ss%209.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1039" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXW0tD5OOtrsPw8VNpytsI6ZmO_dcig-OsT0gzvk6Oo-waPZOZgPap9BetymxOl08LTCUuCm_VicPWtikuf8gMvXvA1jq-PdvLInOSOwT7h4t9E6u_NTE4ajZ0P6uXGhmaMaM5N0PVaw5TXGls3euJ_AmpYiVqNJuw9GsbKSWF4m4fRg9BaIloFegZ/s320/ss%209.jpg" width="222" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">There is no
direct provocation but a poetic nudge so that the dreamy viewers who have
fallen for the mischievousness of Krishna could be shaken out of the mythology
to face something crucial to the current socio-cultural discourse regarding
gender relationships in the country. Shine Shivan does not go in the line of
Bhupen Khakkar or Balbir Kishan. Direct touch of Bhupen and the agonized entanglement
of Balbir using male bodies as the trope is not used in Shine Shivan’s works. Like
the veils over the deities before they are revealed for actual worship, tradition
and convention cover Krishnas’ bodies in Shine Shivan’s works. Critical eyes
are needed to pull the veil of this tradition down and see the artist’s
interpretations. Allegory and retelling work quite effectively in Nidhivan. It
becomes more meaningful when we come to know that Nidhivan is a place in Vrindavan
where the people still believe that the erotic of plays of Krishna still take
place therefore people are forbidden to go there at night!<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">-JohnyML<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></span></p>JohnyMLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854530824953334475noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8872146559118935939.post-13514444203152963102023-01-15T22:08:00.005+05:302023-01-15T22:22:59.937+05:30Probing the Definitional Biases: Latheesh Lakshman’s New Works<p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXSd7lyb0RYHUdnRNe1icd-Axr0TrZy3pKaKDrJMq-7Zcks8RoNMZF4354e0CPn1qnUfxtLzTb8pgqAipSAV7v51xcQBwJq6jBeae4N098BUEgqaNXQzBJ3JL4b6I1huTdiHpr146yGtSLrU79dD834O4gZPk7gyVckHuzZNyo7cTEQc-uF2uTZmwH/s2048/latheesh.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1696" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXSd7lyb0RYHUdnRNe1icd-Axr0TrZy3pKaKDrJMq-7Zcks8RoNMZF4354e0CPn1qnUfxtLzTb8pgqAipSAV7v51xcQBwJq6jBeae4N098BUEgqaNXQzBJ3JL4b6I1huTdiHpr146yGtSLrU79dD834O4gZPk7gyVckHuzZNyo7cTEQc-uF2uTZmwH/s320/latheesh.jpg" width="265" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">(Latheesh Lakshman, artist)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">Great
visual communicators are masters of minimalism. For them silence is eloquence.
Music makes use of silence but for visual arts silence is constituted by lines
and colors. Like the movie makers create palpable inky darkness with a streak
of light penetrating from nowhere into the space, visual artists use lines and
colors minimally to convey ideas. The graphic quality of this minimalism is
suitable to the artists who have worked in advertisement where painterly
lavishness and madness are reined in by parsimony and method. Latheesh
Lakshman, a Kochi based artist has all these qualities, including his solid
experience in advertising.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">Art cannot
perpetuate itself in time without compelling stories built around it. Seeing is
experiential but also it is physical and carnal, together they make a yarn; a
story woven around experience and an experience felt around the physicality of
seeing and viewing. Narrativizing the experience is not just restricted to the
narrative paintings or deep spiritual abstract art. Minimal and graphical art
also tend and tempt to tell stories. Latheesh Lakshman is aware of this and one
of his latest works is about the possible narratives around a work of art. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEoQ7mM5C_7Invh81KXqW2qgF7afVM04ctL9VqNRNQZAF1YnUKTeGl90Cf0d6MVJjkQulKOabz0CiRMX9A-GTdSdz9hPoGuxfDXBaH64G3kOOvGyDRDzkvzPUzRXF4vjjcB5GjHHwO_Wy7chCWKooSLsRo8l4xbbeEo41OUtwnSGZ_hAsdWzW2GkW5/s1280/IMG-20230113-WA0080.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1026" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEoQ7mM5C_7Invh81KXqW2qgF7afVM04ctL9VqNRNQZAF1YnUKTeGl90Cf0d6MVJjkQulKOabz0CiRMX9A-GTdSdz9hPoGuxfDXBaH64G3kOOvGyDRDzkvzPUzRXF4vjjcB5GjHHwO_Wy7chCWKooSLsRo8l4xbbeEo41OUtwnSGZ_hAsdWzW2GkW5/s320/IMG-20230113-WA0080.jpg" width="257" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;">(Name me and Make my Story by Latheesh Lakshman)</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">Visual art,
when it is two dimensional and without joysticks, mouses or touchscreens to
play with, remains static and allows only ocular forays into its space which
necessitates story telling an integral part of its understanding. Latheesh
Lakshman says that the very act of looking at his work of art would make it
interactive because the moment one looks at the work titled ‘Name Me Make My
Story’ a story starts taking shape in the mind. A visual puzzle, the visual
image asks for a definition, an appellation and according to the artist, the
definition and the following story around it are not a beginning but an end in
itself.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">Naming is a
need for categorization and claiming control over the named. Most of the names
in the world are given than self-generated. A name is always attached to a
bias. It stands vis-à-vis a historical continuity and carries the burdens that
it has accrued along. Opposed to fluidity, the idea of naming marks territories
and character traits. Though there is an authorial demand on the viewer
regarding the naming of the image, it evokes the subjective understanding of
the traits that one tends to perceive in the manifested image before him. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiom_Y-uf6T3IXCEPcJrtvUBYXnncv2aVolfiUcdkZuopi-cIp4qMIkM3cxiXwdwj3yaQbyf2Z0zANIUoX13ZBNotq5BAw9-ChRqLp0KJPrykzqsGk6qUY0TwpB8PaARL37yKwyJ6UCB5J6uWOdMP053AzrsnlHE_L0LN_Lp6rOSed7Bmzdn4YZ0yIQ/s2118/Screenshot%202023-01-03%20at%203.05.41%20PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1028" data-original-width="2118" height="155" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiom_Y-uf6T3IXCEPcJrtvUBYXnncv2aVolfiUcdkZuopi-cIp4qMIkM3cxiXwdwj3yaQbyf2Z0zANIUoX13ZBNotq5BAw9-ChRqLp0KJPrykzqsGk6qUY0TwpB8PaARL37yKwyJ6UCB5J6uWOdMP053AzrsnlHE_L0LN_Lp6rOSed7Bmzdn4YZ0yIQ/s320/Screenshot%202023-01-03%20at%203.05.41%20PM.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;">(Aara, Evidunnaa, Engottaa by Latheesh Lakshman)</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">In fact,
Latheesh Lakshman’s image is composite and fluid, cancelling the specificities
and emphasizing its kaleidoscopic complexities. But the viewers, goaded by the
command/demand enter the narrativizing space and come up with definitive
stereotypes, limiting the possibilities of their expansion and containing them
within the subjective predictabilities. Perhaps, it is a critique of human
narratives that aims at expanding the existential scope but falls into the
making of palatable narratives. Also, the critique is directed at the idea of advertising
that despite its fluid and unconventional narratives how it contains the
narrative within the boundaries of the conventional.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">In Latheesh
Lakshman’s work there is also a relational field of subjectivities where one
acts as the author of the story and the other the subject of it. The faces that
come forth in each looking make the viewer an author who is authorized by the
self to generate a narrative around the other and hold him within the limits of
containment zone. The authorial position of the viewer always gives him this
fancy feeling of giving the other full freedom in his narrative but intrinsic
censorial acts stop all the possible freedoms the other could take. That’s why
the artist says that the narrativizing is not about a beginning but about
ending it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiQMrFEAW1NeZi9vrIrsY3FL-6nt2Y9oPfbtBLKgy51nkeQJ_5PabHhokw7RqnCw5LBM14GywvuVqSwRp_gGNIT4wgOQ_eQnUfvPRMePWQh_cvVr_84Lm_gSTKU5uPsVPpGQjJp6jlvUI9r636OMn-WvQDcQqcEbQNt8yB984M7nat3TPzzLIERZwt/s1242/Screenshot%202023-01-13%20at%208.50.04%20PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1242" data-original-width="832" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiQMrFEAW1NeZi9vrIrsY3FL-6nt2Y9oPfbtBLKgy51nkeQJ_5PabHhokw7RqnCw5LBM14GywvuVqSwRp_gGNIT4wgOQ_eQnUfvPRMePWQh_cvVr_84Lm_gSTKU5uPsVPpGQjJp6jlvUI9r636OMn-WvQDcQqcEbQNt8yB984M7nat3TPzzLIERZwt/s320/Screenshot%202023-01-13%20at%208.50.04%20PM.png" width="214" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;">(Aara? Who are You?)</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">Another
interesting set of works by Latheesh Lakshman also probes the relational field
of subjectivities in the given territorial limits. There are these curious
questions, who are you, where are you coming from and where are you going, always
originate in a person or a social group or territorial beings when they come
across the others who are deemed to be newcomers or intruders. Strangeness of
the other is not defined by his or her strange features but there is something
that cuts beyond the familiar human features that give birth to those
questions. Seen as ways of befriending and mitigating the fear for the other
these questions at once place the other in an ambivalent space, making him not
only define himself but also defend his right to be there. Hence, the attempts
to befriend create a sense of rivalry that makes even the future relationship
with them tendentious. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_r77V6h5LAX80CsFwbCspKtzhqqo7x1X0JnZ_vHdQZSwSG9QzteCa7UTwSIQaEW_1EjIMXGTRwEpImOSIWTslvFFOve2LdN21WkH87uTjXihpeW9LNexMAFjoIq9AjEUN0-cdfPEmQrtZv2HqLao8yf1ctggA5e6IqTGJ1z-fLskYXHEb5JnZk3cz/s1226/Screenshot%202023-01-13%20at%208.50.23%20PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1226" data-original-width="828" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_r77V6h5LAX80CsFwbCspKtzhqqo7x1X0JnZ_vHdQZSwSG9QzteCa7UTwSIQaEW_1EjIMXGTRwEpImOSIWTslvFFOve2LdN21WkH87uTjXihpeW9LNexMAFjoIq9AjEUN0-cdfPEmQrtZv2HqLao8yf1ctggA5e6IqTGJ1z-fLskYXHEb5JnZk3cz/s320/Screenshot%202023-01-13%20at%208.50.23%20PM.png" width="216" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;">(Evidunnaa? Where are you from?)</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">These
questions in Latheesh Lakshman’s works take the shape of the other, a
cartoonish vision of the other in the eyes of the questioner and also it
becomes a mirror reflection of the other in question, together making a sense
of absurdity. The inability of these questions to exceed their physicality
appears to be comical when we compare similar questions philosophically raised
within the field of visual arts. The lines that make the figures in them become
the calligraphic representations of the questions in the artist’s mother tongue
Malayalam, aaraa (who are you), evidunnaa (where are you from) and engottaa
(where are you going).<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">This comic
effect becomes intense when seen against the mural sized painting by Paul
Gauguin titled ‘Where do we come from? Who we are? Where are we going?’ Gauguin
did this painting in 1897 when he was going through severe depression and
personal losses. He was even contemplating suicide. In such a situation one
could probe into the very meaning of human existence. One could wonder at this
phenomenon called life. The questions raised by Gauguin are not territorial and
xenophobic but ridden with the mysteries of life.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKcTpSDTKK0pI_5NiU99ySlvIBMdaUSQvuP7Bvd_803ZCFyFv1pKUHeNFB2xhd1hJZYRViojS-IVc3ODRWIXbprOfoTn6qRVw5FVIEuHyo80wZrokY9GNhqxISMcMF_v7qJQORjpadj64sjQxbrjZ3yS6S6es229o8iD1sCoMvqA5HJ4-S7CknJCvv/s1230/Screenshot%202023-01-13%20at%208.50.41%20PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1230" data-original-width="824" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKcTpSDTKK0pI_5NiU99ySlvIBMdaUSQvuP7Bvd_803ZCFyFv1pKUHeNFB2xhd1hJZYRViojS-IVc3ODRWIXbprOfoTn6qRVw5FVIEuHyo80wZrokY9GNhqxISMcMF_v7qJQORjpadj64sjQxbrjZ3yS6S6es229o8iD1sCoMvqA5HJ4-S7CknJCvv/s320/Screenshot%202023-01-13%20at%208.50.41%20PM.png" width="214" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;">(Engottaa? Where are you Going?)</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">Latheesh
Lakshman tells us how we have become lesser beings in our lesser pursuits and
how we have become just territorial animals living in constant fear of the
other. His lines run against the flat and flashy colors like a line of ink wandering
along a field of poppies and tulips. These are the questions held by the artist
against each one of the onlookers for telling one or two hard facts about them.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">-JohnyML<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></span></p>JohnyMLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854530824953334475noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8872146559118935939.post-6740989855748790722022-03-14T12:37:00.004+05:302022-03-14T12:44:15.676+05:30 A Factory without Alienation: Waswo’s Karkhana: A Rajasthan Studio<p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi47k8iSl70w8WaSw1_kMYo4dT5QjXZ-Aae5Vh1NsyX83XxxDVcw4OJFaUg54q3t-9PdouAJFIrEykGjn-z1DIqwlBYSPdVrz2sCkAASdQXTvliwTMZcVaMZQPqf9-rfYx-L7pdsZsQIBcDPvYYPc_fvj1MO3wMqomLb0Jt6tyPvbwLMHxq1HAt3KgY=s1440" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1036" data-original-width="1440" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi47k8iSl70w8WaSw1_kMYo4dT5QjXZ-Aae5Vh1NsyX83XxxDVcw4OJFaUg54q3t-9PdouAJFIrEykGjn-z1DIqwlBYSPdVrz2sCkAASdQXTvliwTMZcVaMZQPqf9-rfYx-L7pdsZsQIBcDPvYYPc_fvj1MO3wMqomLb0Jt6tyPvbwLMHxq1HAt3KgY=s320" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">(Waswo with his Karkhana People)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">In ‘Karkhana: A Studio in Rajasthan’, the latest book by
artist Waswo x Waswo one could see/feel the spirit of a Ruskin Bond narrative.
Bond loves his Mussoorie and Waswo loves his Udaipur. Bond had made India his
home in 1960s itself; a sojourn in London was suffocating for him. Waswo spent
his youthful days in Milwaukee and hit the road when the rural borders were
closing in on his mind. Interestingly, in India he had his first professional
exhibition at the Kashi Art Gallery, Fort Kochi in 2002. He fondly remembers
late Anoop Skaria and Dorrie Younger who had recognized his ‘genre-less’ works,
when the Indian art market was undergoing the labor pain. Since then Waswo
never had to look back. Though the artistic journey was partly on bumpy roads
he has finally settled down in Udaipur, Rajasthan, which he could easily claim
as his home now. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiA5be6gjw0wptuKEK0hpq7aL8QF383etDXs6ykkVyn1DC-Rk9v4Awdl86r-lbNVsqIU1ekO08q4PEStZ1-88d-a4RX1ccwRzZ1g447ZyYfSEG60edEsYfw5BLlYwCrKyJNFOYHgGXy7Xg9fk3BEjFK5Awpi0sgUFn5xkvu4CLM2vb7OxGQnkwHn3Yu=s1500" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1311" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiA5be6gjw0wptuKEK0hpq7aL8QF383etDXs6ykkVyn1DC-Rk9v4Awdl86r-lbNVsqIU1ekO08q4PEStZ1-88d-a4RX1ccwRzZ1g447ZyYfSEG60edEsYfw5BLlYwCrKyJNFOYHgGXy7Xg9fk3BEjFK5Awpi0sgUFn5xkvu4CLM2vb7OxGQnkwHn3Yu=s320" width="280" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;">(Karghana Book Cover)<br /> </span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Waswo works with a team of local artists and the book tells
their story. Seen through the eyes of the narrator these local artists come
across as legendry characters from the yellowing annals of a local gazette. The
word Karkhana literally translates as a factory and the word factory brings in
the mind a picture of assembly line works. This is where Marx had found
alienation as the splitting factor that separated the worker from the product.
In that sense, Karkhana has a different meaning altogether, perhaps a contrary
one. Karkhana is an atelier led by a master artist where skillful assistants work
on parts but still have an idea about the final outcome. Assistants could earn
their own status either by choosing an independent course or by finding a
patron and initiating a different karhana. Traditionally, artists/assistants
in a Karkhana do not part ways with the master/s not only because the patronage
was far and wide but also because their existence was based more on trust and
style.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgL4gYIxxQC1iHcf-oO4o46r6eTRix5y6AjO7F8DRW_YLw3FDZn4yNmoKBECuCwG7Ysp6AV38nl7fm6zHoYUDjBmgIzQcFPCuPfdNcUHae4O-CnYck75QLiZrPD9h0uCGFKOj0_dCG6YdMQuOUF9jKUCl5d8gbgL_lghXCM611kjpkVPHE4qcZm4vI7=s1500" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgL4gYIxxQC1iHcf-oO4o46r6eTRix5y6AjO7F8DRW_YLw3FDZn4yNmoKBECuCwG7Ysp6AV38nl7fm6zHoYUDjBmgIzQcFPCuPfdNcUHae4O-CnYck75QLiZrPD9h0uCGFKOj0_dCG6YdMQuOUF9jKUCl5d8gbgL_lghXCM611kjpkVPHE4qcZm4vI7=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;">(Work by Waswo and his Karkhana)</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Trust is something that cannot be fixed always in a signed
bond. A written document may be legally binding for the parties but the
unwritten trust between people who operate within a society is more reliable.
Waswo was and is lucky to find a few artists in due course of time as he
settled in Udaipur. He was in the right place at the right time and had the
right attitude to make friends with the local artists and artisans. The growth
was mutual as the local artists could extricate themselves from the demands of
the tourist bazaar for making cheap and mechanical and lifeless reproductions
of the stock images that defined ‘Rajasthan’ as a place and culture frozen in
time, and in the meanwhile Waswo could negotiate with the problematic
position/ing of his own artistic self as a ‘white westerner’ both in his
mundane and creative existence. He started off as an ‘Evil Orientalist’ only to
shed the honorific soon to become a benevolent collaborator and director of
many selves in the creative process. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjB6qmhcVEbOV-5Spw1Tg0obWKRpzKg2dSWZ_G9fiRRevywwoUSI3eUYay6ydGgnncgMbV90zbn8BseIGzEjiW0JKao6WXbAqB253SO-UP3y9BcBZTORy5ElmgXb26QutRW-EPhiOWwYRh9o_30lxpuAAcoxYPMB2gjDvf6JOdrfbU9sSUWv6Bd_gSG=s960" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="693" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjB6qmhcVEbOV-5Spw1Tg0obWKRpzKg2dSWZ_G9fiRRevywwoUSI3eUYay6ydGgnncgMbV90zbn8BseIGzEjiW0JKao6WXbAqB253SO-UP3y9BcBZTORy5ElmgXb26QutRW-EPhiOWwYRh9o_30lxpuAAcoxYPMB2gjDvf6JOdrfbU9sSUWv6Bd_gSG=s320" width="231" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;">(Waswo and team)</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">The book tells the story of the collaborators; Rakesh aka R.Vijay,
the miniature artist, Rajesh Soni, the hand colorist on black and white
photographs, Shankar and Chirag Kumawat, the father-son duo who paint intricate
borders on wasli papers, Dalpat and Banti Jingar brothers, who could paint
backdrops and could faithfully reproduce exquisitely painted palace interiors
in many frames without fault, Ganpat Mali and Jay Prakash who are multi-purpose
studio hands who add a lot of value to the Karkhana process created by Waswo.
There are many other side characters who come and go , and even at times pose
for the photographs that eventually become full-fledged works of art as they
pass through the hands of the above mentioned artists under the watchful
direction of the mastermind, Waswo himself. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj7aqVuJ58-_WZk8fbZDh1tSWJI_5svqkSnC_TahcVb-xA6aQnAJkQRZU7QDaNCQylq9fjFkzMXVQbgO7SvgVUsODAwDhyL5at2YW_4DzKENPQjtEhuy_eOR37tSLsilKxlc48f-AAacTV0JTT68n08s6lsIXZB7wImELcT1z-FUIlWAXjRdojFdXP4=s1280" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1280" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj7aqVuJ58-_WZk8fbZDh1tSWJI_5svqkSnC_TahcVb-xA6aQnAJkQRZU7QDaNCQylq9fjFkzMXVQbgO7SvgVUsODAwDhyL5at2YW_4DzKENPQjtEhuy_eOR37tSLsilKxlc48f-AAacTV0JTT68n08s6lsIXZB7wImELcT1z-FUIlWAXjRdojFdXP4=s320" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;">(Work by Waswo made by Karkhana)</span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Though the book is titled as Karkhana, the structure is that
of a journey, sometimes on an Enfield Bullet and other times in a multi-utility
van, driven by Ganpat Mali and Waswo on the pillion. The time is spread over a
few years but the narrative is arranged in such a way that the reader feels
that the whole thing happened on a hectic day; from early morning to night. The
narrative unfolds in a reverse order. We see the border makers first and then
the backdrop painters who make the broader decorative strokes in the works of
Waswo. Then we go to the master artist, R.Vijay who, faithful to the miniature
tradition of Rajasthan, recreates it for a modern aesthetic purpose with a
sense of irony and a lot of personal touch. Today, R.Vijay is Waswo or vice
versa. Each time, with the riders we too get down from the motorbike and walk
into the artists’ homes or work places and what come alive are the little
precious gems of their biographies. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjLv1CCRkqLEwOeL6yi8IAOr4m9fsKdP61dYBG_etUkEPQO3FT39fYFKD6-tFWfc3OKHIP7up8vFlHVM5dAWSdh6u9LatevnERQ6xzOpQTWvHzZcS7vO_191iA91KXik53dCtI_dAReHSC3I9YEV2MHA00KqWKfSt32f6NdxHB-nBYCqFws-7DUymC2=s1000" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjLv1CCRkqLEwOeL6yi8IAOr4m9fsKdP61dYBG_etUkEPQO3FT39fYFKD6-tFWfc3OKHIP7up8vFlHVM5dAWSdh6u9LatevnERQ6xzOpQTWvHzZcS7vO_191iA91KXik53dCtI_dAReHSC3I9YEV2MHA00KqWKfSt32f6NdxHB-nBYCqFws-7DUymC2=s320" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /> (Waswo and R.Vijay)</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Waswo has written this book during the lockdown days.
Udaipur streets are no longer abuzz with touristic activities. But the local
life goes on. And in Waswo’s narrative one could feel the heat, dust and
loneliness of the pandemic hit streets. However, the jovial nature of the collaborators
is never gone as Waswo keeps their pay roll on with bonuses. R.Vijay underplays
the hardships of the times by painting an abandoned surgical mask and a bisleri
bottle, the iconographic details of the fedora man, the former evil
orientalist. The book ends up in a party at the Varda studio and the night
followed by that. In a way that chapter is a stock taking shot in a movie where
the cast and crew gather for a party, a movie within a movie, a narrative
within the narrative with the characters becoming living men and a few women in
long shot or in fade out. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhsecyv6UIUcHkpSFnCvbioiFIrOGl5xgWGgzLULBjEJojjXni-5zEIQCfBqS7umjfuf3_Iv4FOEqNWhVZUAGgppnP6cwf3j6Zw-maqREBRhaUwlAPyBR4ySFNo1u3O-WyctTHU5Ek-vedSmS-fszSVaOh6t3GAzWrQ22YtB8vbYmnyPiNaxA18O_gr=s960" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhsecyv6UIUcHkpSFnCvbioiFIrOGl5xgWGgzLULBjEJojjXni-5zEIQCfBqS7umjfuf3_Iv4FOEqNWhVZUAGgppnP6cwf3j6Zw-maqREBRhaUwlAPyBR4ySFNo1u3O-WyctTHU5Ek-vedSmS-fszSVaOh6t3GAzWrQ22YtB8vbYmnyPiNaxA18O_gr=s320" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />(Waswo x Waswo) </span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Karkhana is a collective biography or rather a collective autobiography
written by one person. Their lives are now intricately mixed up and positively
the symbiotic relationship is not collapsed by surreptitious offers or breach
of trusts. May be because Waswo remains the master mind and the glue that holds
all together; without them, may be they are just border painters, backdrop
makers, miniature artists and photo colorists. I do think that even mentioning
such a dissection of roles is rude. The book, beyond its literature part also
functions as a documentation of the works that they have so far collaborated,
especially during the last few years including the pandemic ones. But without
the literature, it is just another book of Waswo’s works. In creating that
literature, Waswo has generated a post-colonial and truly global documentation
on decentralized collaboration (not of the sweatshop version of the corporate
like works of art) of artists where each one is acknowledged without fudge. One
cannot complain about alienation here anymore. A must read for the art lovers. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">-JohnyML<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p>JohnyMLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854530824953334475noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8872146559118935939.post-12127976567129830242022-02-28T18:12:00.000+05:302022-02-28T18:12:07.871+05:30Cosmic Battles Waged in Aesthetic Orbits: Latest Exhibition of Subodh Gupta<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg627-6zoMj1HBRaIo0Ryz_w6kCFQi3nvsJ1OAIvZagZxvud7iHSPDaYvsHpniakmVJqYfwTs6tjeLZ6xPHwDGOZ-0bO8Pb0xbY146fLVAB-VR5-Sz4Qgs6ZcOKW0cRCpwFRNH-h7fgGepkrWmBnuZ3RZRs_NZDAI7NhrAgiHwnXKpFou5rWshTvBjz=s1296" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="972" data-original-width="1296" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg627-6zoMj1HBRaIo0Ryz_w6kCFQi3nvsJ1OAIvZagZxvud7iHSPDaYvsHpniakmVJqYfwTs6tjeLZ6xPHwDGOZ-0bO8Pb0xbY146fLVAB-VR5-Sz4Qgs6ZcOKW0cRCpwFRNH-h7fgGepkrWmBnuZ3RZRs_NZDAI7NhrAgiHwnXKpFou5rWshTvBjz=s320" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">(Subodh Gupta)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Down here among the mortals a fierce war is being fought. World
has not yet decided which side to take; that of Russia or of Ukraine. But
everyone knows they have to ultimately take a side; and yes, they have more or
less zeroed in on the side of their choice- that of humanity. Forget the
geopolitics, they say. Whatever be the case we want the human beings, and that
too the vulnerable of the lot, be safe and beyond the brutal pain that the wars
are famous for inflicting upon the fleeing. From the safety of elsewhere
warfare, unlike in the yesteryears no longer is exciting like the pyrotechnics
that used to light up the huge flat-screen television sets. The title ‘Cosmic
Battle’ of Subodh Gupta’s latest solo exhibition at the Nature Morte, New Delhi
sounds like an eerie coincidence though the artist has been at it for the last
one decade or so. I mean, bringing the pain of battles and displacements in his
enormous and impressive installations. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjhK17UeO8NIoXYZitK5RLD9MCTQbRPzBO50zaMvEIKH9-zMzyD_XwEbE_D6nbAAwp6qZDvTjnW5G_WR2FoCBG8zM7If7eARFokWpqXcOm860BXaxkEwQFdrUngaPaWBB7hcp9iqN2CQssRosvK9ziGTcZmqiH4rvRqFIFT5rbQcLlH4TVaxsd1JFlj=s1199" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1199" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjhK17UeO8NIoXYZitK5RLD9MCTQbRPzBO50zaMvEIKH9-zMzyD_XwEbE_D6nbAAwp6qZDvTjnW5G_WR2FoCBG8zM7If7eARFokWpqXcOm860BXaxkEwQFdrUngaPaWBB7hcp9iqN2CQssRosvK9ziGTcZmqiH4rvRqFIFT5rbQcLlH4TVaxsd1JFlj=s320" width="320" /></a></span></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></o:p></span></p><span style="font-size: large;">(Cosmic Battle by Subodh Gupta)</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">‘Cosmic Battle’, the installation that provides the catchy
title to the show is an apt reification for the saying like ‘suspended
animation’. The phrase suggests the contrary meaning though it has the ability
to show something in suspension and also in animation at once, even if the
intention is to underline the frozenness of the situation. The stalemate of a
confrontation may be a distant possibility when it comes to cosmic affairs,
unlike the universal/global affairs like war. The suspension from the ‘dark
nowhere’ is how the cosmos is described, sometimes in the form of a golden egg/Hiranyagarbha
or in the form of a ghata/pot. Noted art historian B.N.Goswami writes in his
essay titled ‘Engaging with Vastness’, “Hiranyagarbha is spoken of as being ‘present
at the beginning’, ‘upholding this earth and heaven’, ‘whose commands all
beings, even the gods, obey’, ‘whose shadow is immortality, whose (shadow also)
is death’.” May be, for the ones who have keen eyes could see in Gupta’s ‘Cosmic
Battle’ the definitional specificities given by Prof.Goswami.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiQgMZNgqfEGgsj7hqhGdS69SGiE64Lpf8g-3VaxaymOJLxBjxbbXgq_U2cGKtMtOMyfaDEwmmXnQ0KQAMWMPiX5PsTAyLwhIqhl1gvl9w2Wk94HR0FKUyDmv0NiOE4gXsuO1AKQu2ce5t6MtRf9wfjzdLW5cjZF70CS0LmmTF9bqoYvyzEgWxJQ-rt=s1199" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1199" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiQgMZNgqfEGgsj7hqhGdS69SGiE64Lpf8g-3VaxaymOJLxBjxbbXgq_U2cGKtMtOMyfaDEwmmXnQ0KQAMWMPiX5PsTAyLwhIqhl1gvl9w2Wk94HR0FKUyDmv0NiOE4gXsuO1AKQu2ce5t6MtRf9wfjzdLW5cjZF70CS0LmmTF9bqoYvyzEgWxJQ-rt=s320" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;">(Cosmic Battle by Subodh Gupta)</span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">The kinetic slowness imparted to the work through a
mechanism that emulates the impalpable rotation of the earth itself, adds
certain amount of conceptual magnanimity to the moderate size of the sculptural
body (in comparison with the sheer size of the earlier indoor works of Gupta)
and also invites the viewers for a virtual circumambulation around the object
while being stationed at one place of viewing (depending on the entrance to the
space where the work is hung). The unheard music (anhad garje, as said by the
saint poet Kabir) reminds the visitors of the cosmic music generated by the
celestial spheres along their elliptical paths. While the religious philosophy
of the land is affirmative about the conception of cosmos as an Earthen Pot or
as Golden Egg, the battle that takes place could be attributive, reflecting the
contemporary global conflicts that cause the residual humans as refugees and
homeless. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhMSyYQPiLly8orUBuPcdfi-BAmQ-Sl9WstQej9q5weVtfeogeCHJtVXZI1ASqaQnWbhM0EXUuztyRGasvmu1zDDUy1EuMT45jwfWipcvflWn-UGUXMWB0v4ByI6gL-qloSWe5dwudUn-u4ZgFqnTOyD6sDZ0vlm0QVVjHSkyqsNCO-b9pHtL_D8J4W=s1199" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1199" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhMSyYQPiLly8orUBuPcdfi-BAmQ-Sl9WstQej9q5weVtfeogeCHJtVXZI1ASqaQnWbhM0EXUuztyRGasvmu1zDDUy1EuMT45jwfWipcvflWn-UGUXMWB0v4ByI6gL-qloSWe5dwudUn-u4ZgFqnTOyD6sDZ0vlm0QVVjHSkyqsNCO-b9pHtL_D8J4W=s320" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;">(Self Portrait by Subodh Gupta)</span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Size does matter when artist superstars are back in the
gallery circuit. The obvious hugeness of Gupta’s works in many ways resembles
the same enormity brought to being in the works of Anish Kapoor. It does not
mean that Gupta imitates Kapoor or vice versa. On the contrary they share a
common world view at least in the creation of aesthetics, that the object-hood
of the works is important, the reflection on their smooth surfaces is an
imperative and invariably the reflections should not correspond to the actual
thoughts that the art should evoke in the minds of the viewers. There is a
physical play between the surface truth of their works and the positioning of
the viewers in front of them. Distortions and displacements caused by the
imperfect reflections goad the viewers to find the meanings beyond the object-nature
of the works. As Althusser puts it, it is not the artist who keeps certain
relationship with the objects that he creates but the objects that make a
relationship with the artist. Going by this view, the (art) objects remain in the
realm of artist’s biography and history so far, establishing constant
connections even if artist wants to detach himself from them and leave them as
independent objects for aesthetic contemplation.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi1qzjNgl3y3kaVoTt_BCX2FOBBY2YEvgqfwmV-VaKSegDcPit5ODxLcbF4lXRCSVPHMwQVkbscQMFu3Rq_RAfx5MTWdXYPrB6kRx-hFpXFQ3KubQkLtVuurAzf5z9uVuHqM1SiIZc6sG5IqAHHLOr3SGJwqBUQQFwgV2HNGmo3lgUvODZnYtZxwTP-=s1199" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1199" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi1qzjNgl3y3kaVoTt_BCX2FOBBY2YEvgqfwmV-VaKSegDcPit5ODxLcbF4lXRCSVPHMwQVkbscQMFu3Rq_RAfx5MTWdXYPrB6kRx-hFpXFQ3KubQkLtVuurAzf5z9uVuHqM1SiIZc6sG5IqAHHLOr3SGJwqBUQQFwgV2HNGmo3lgUvODZnYtZxwTP-=s320" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;">(Self Portrait Detail by Subodh Gupta)</span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">These inextricable knots that the works of art generate in
relation with the artist more or less open up the entry points in Gupta’s two
other works exhibited in the same premises. The objects as a whole do not
create a coherent continuity with the familiar aesthetics of Gupta. Though the
hallmark vessels do establish a Gupta touch in them, the disparity lies in
their organization in this work. A note that accompanies the show says that this
works in fact look like a crashing down of Gupta’s works in the middle of the
gallery and refused to be scavenged out. It could be one of the cruelest of
qualifications that any work of art can get from a gallery introduction.
Notwithstanding the cruelty of the statement there is a methodical madness in
the disembowelment of the virtual pregnancy of Gupta’s vision. The heap thus
generated however does not evoke revulsion but demand a mental engagement with
the components as if it really were a Gupta jigsaw puzzle. In that mental
engagement the continuity is established and the deliberate and accidental quirkiness
of Gupta’s sarcastic and ironic takes on the Indian community practices unravel
itself. The ‘sleepers’, the wooden planks that held the rails in place come as
a visual suggestion or a quotation from the autobiography of the artist, a
further claim of authenticity and continuity, perhaps an assertion that Gupta
needs any more but too close to his heart to resist. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiU-osgBjct51w5m_SLJzegarbt7iXU0EMlsb4Qk4_wQY-lb-qZcMZ3f7REgFTATD_tgigWpRxOxW_RPeYoSLYXIAZhW17HJfDcSNhuZB0fnyEMIiR4pugq_whyB4QiF6JQKOIjnwh6zMgEJ6eMLrt3hLfBt67rfKl9PiQ3q_MuluzxDFK95elU1nGk=s1199" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1199" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiU-osgBjct51w5m_SLJzegarbt7iXU0EMlsb4Qk4_wQY-lb-qZcMZ3f7REgFTATD_tgigWpRxOxW_RPeYoSLYXIAZhW17HJfDcSNhuZB0fnyEMIiR4pugq_whyB4QiF6JQKOIjnwh6zMgEJ6eMLrt3hLfBt67rfKl9PiQ3q_MuluzxDFK95elU1nGk=s320" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhgvmDIw0w6MFa4T84f7ul-21CHbSHx44y2--TxIk4grLTUL0gsEX4rFZEV89gLDm2axvBlkuZaE7jjQHNvd3pAcimphqV0qmkMdxd06nJHH35GHnBtr9EaCJFhR2uMu3pbzhqkTWqaHjnpBj77ITGsT3nkNpvu2pV0Ro8jMpK7i6VLsQr_2-nM_QeG=s1199" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1199" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhgvmDIw0w6MFa4T84f7ul-21CHbSHx44y2--TxIk4grLTUL0gsEX4rFZEV89gLDm2axvBlkuZaE7jjQHNvd3pAcimphqV0qmkMdxd06nJHH35GHnBtr9EaCJFhR2uMu3pbzhqkTWqaHjnpBj77ITGsT3nkNpvu2pV0Ro8jMpK7i6VLsQr_2-nM_QeG=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;">(Torso by Subodh Gupta)</span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">A myth maker as he is Gupta often tells a story around his
works, harking back to the real and imaginary incidents that had colored his
childhood. A keen follower of Gupta’s speeches in various exhibition venues all
over the world, available in YouTube could see how he twists and turns the same
incident into stories suitable to explain his work in question. The
articulation is deliberately patchy, moving beyond the logic of imperfect
English, a language allows any linguistic community a tricky access to his
works and through that he helps his works stand erect like the one you see in
his ‘Torso’, a third work in the exhibition. Torso brings art historical
torsos, Gomateswara of Sravanabelagola, the mutilated torsos of rampant communal
violence and wars near and far, in mind. Also it is a torso in the making or in
the process of abandonment. It is emblematic to the ambitions of a maker,
someone aspires eternity but fails to deliver. Could it be a surreptitious commentary
on the present Indian political leadership that revels in making statues that
are finished physically but never achieved their conceptual completion in the
intellectual sphere? One cannot be sure. Like Kapoor, Gupta cannot hide his
cultural roots in the magnificent nature of sculptures; he has to give a hint
of his socio-cultural belongingness. Or is Gupta a prisoner of his own image
repertoire? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">-JohnyML<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p>JohnyMLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854530824953334475noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8872146559118935939.post-41181099822100962702022-02-12T13:04:00.002+05:302022-02-12T13:04:38.575+05:30Portia in Venice: Intelligent Interventions by Cecilia Alemani in Venice Biennale 2022<p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEheQwrQU1yNrg0fAAUZ-zhgOSVo-WSUBaBVYLUEkoM3asqm5AaRAYBsdlE3nUOaRGBHkYkTm1Gp3A1XDPKUNQzL_3Ik9RtfkHK4B_C4N6j7M6WBlIAI1iMv-OplzNEHgyo8nZ7pGADW2I2lRMiQmohOmCfHocBAkGaUadmZveGXDSP9bYAbDiJUeHbN=s1236" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="773" data-original-width="1236" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEheQwrQU1yNrg0fAAUZ-zhgOSVo-WSUBaBVYLUEkoM3asqm5AaRAYBsdlE3nUOaRGBHkYkTm1Gp3A1XDPKUNQzL_3Ik9RtfkHK4B_C4N6j7M6WBlIAI1iMv-OplzNEHgyo8nZ7pGADW2I2lRMiQmohOmCfHocBAkGaUadmZveGXDSP9bYAbDiJUeHbN=s320" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="font-size: large;"> (Cecilia Alemani, Curator, 9th Venice Biennale, pic source:net)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="font-size: large;">Nearly 200 artists from 58
countries. Mostly ‘women and gender non-confirming’ artists as put by the curatorial
director, Cecilia Alemani. That’s the summery of the Venice Biennale’s latest
edition slated to open on 23<sup>rd</sup> April 2022. The 59<sup>th</sup>
edition of the world’s oldest biennale was put on hold due to the global pandemic
during the last two years. The marker line that goes between the pre and post
pandemic world is not yet clear though almost all the industries have braced
themselves up to ‘live with’ the pandemic. Hopefully India’s Kochi Muziris
Biennale also would take place towards the end of this year. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="font-size: large;">Some commentators have already said
that the forthcoming edition of the Venice Biennale is based on social issues
and why should one travel all the way to Venice to catch up all those politically
correct art works when one could do some gallery hopping in any city and see
the same. Waswo X Waswo, an American-Indian contemporary artist based in
Udaipur, India opines that the ‘art world needs a cleansing and detox’. If I
have understood it correctly, Waswo says that the curatorial line of the
present edition of the Venice Biennale is too biased and politically inclined.
The question seems to be like shouldn’t we go back to the days when art was
judged for the sake of artistry and ingenuity?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjEIvXyVgyJ_h-XPySAhLDIk653y7Q64LnI86oWtnZuj6DqwDGgyCHHNig5N0_pG1qN1B4-dblUMLiXIouPj6qvHV13ZkJJPkn0yhVgqmDwby8jzs6yV3ETLw6e3dfW5SjZVvECBJgHXZIZuU5sbW-40FWbeHw8QvqceaAxj9aIO-uHG6ycXCD868y8=s1200" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="749" data-original-width="1200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjEIvXyVgyJ_h-XPySAhLDIk653y7Q64LnI86oWtnZuj6DqwDGgyCHHNig5N0_pG1qN1B4-dblUMLiXIouPj6qvHV13ZkJJPkn0yhVgqmDwby8jzs6yV3ETLw6e3dfW5SjZVvECBJgHXZIZuU5sbW-40FWbeHw8QvqceaAxj9aIO-uHG6ycXCD868y8=s320" width="320" /></a></span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></o:p></span></p><span style="font-size: large;">(Waswo X Waswo, artist. Pic: Source the Hindu)</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="font-size: large;">Modern art, an expressive mode
adopted by feverishly intelligent individuals, has never been away from
politics. Whenever it did take an apparent detour away from the political path,
it surreptitiously upheld the larger political realities for its own existence.
The seeming neutrality was a ploy that helped many to veer towards the slippery
slopes of the investment market without leaving the claims of art for art’s
sake, while the real intention remained as investment for investment’s sake.
Art became overtly political in various countries depending on their
materialistic realities. There cannot be a linear history for this though
larger blankets could be used for making huge political packages on art. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="font-size: large;">During the last couple of Venice
Biennales, though interesting curators were involved and politics had taken an
upper hand in the formulation of the works of art, as the market boom was well
in place, gallery circuits and museum managements had made tangible and tactical
alliances, and above all the auction houses decided the tending styles and
concerns, the choices made by these curators were largely determined by the
market forces that the liberal socio-political curatorial policies never dared
to contest. The result was a set of loose packages created succumbing to the
arm twisting methods of the local market forces brokered through the locally
sourced sub curators. The works of art created for the events fell line with
the trends set by the global conglomerate of art market though in paper all
were presented as revolutionary works of art with tall claims as first of its
kind in history. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEisp1JCDadwywo-efjZ_W5XvH0jI6KrttmIdyAXduoAFI7tnFzeZ7Df7ebmo_F027uRqOAScviG_xr1TLt9HGkfke19wJqABeWO9fgw8-JgBcADJuOFZi12dcc1xieRdyhsBWUAlEh1XrEvue6s6XZcSBM5ahvo6zYXNVOc8fZevUVXzFJeXNmMII6r=s450" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="370" data-original-width="450" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEisp1JCDadwywo-efjZ_W5XvH0jI6KrttmIdyAXduoAFI7tnFzeZ7Df7ebmo_F027uRqOAScviG_xr1TLt9HGkfke19wJqABeWO9fgw8-JgBcADJuOFZi12dcc1xieRdyhsBWUAlEh1XrEvue6s6XZcSBM5ahvo6zYXNVOc8fZevUVXzFJeXNmMII6r=s320" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="font-size: large;">(Surrealist Leonora Carrington, Pic: Wikipedia)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="font-size: large;">Today Cecilia Alemani calls her
curatorial project, ‘The Milk of Dreams’, invoking the life and art of the
woman surrealist, Leonora Carrington. The curatorial line is unabashedly political
and one wouldn’t see a lot of fancy plumes of male vanity in those exhibition
halls in Venice. Instead, there would be many previously unheard of women
artists from the mainstream and sub-streams whose engagement with art in many
ways foreshadowed the turns that art could take in future. The post-human
contentions and claims that the project evokes or even deliberately aims at are
exclusive in terms of the avoidance of male interventions on the same but
posits women and gender non-confirming artists as the voices of all those who
have been excluded from the discursive core during the Anthropocene phase of
the globe. The code of invisibility is broken and status quo is challenged in
this exhibition, hopefully. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="font-size: large;">There cannot be an art for art sake
anymore. Art is not judged for its formal values alone. May be that is an
exclusive concern of the art makers who consider traditional knowledge of
making art and also the traditional ways of appreciating art should be left
alone to perpetuate itself in the mainstream and all else could happen in the
sidelines. Cecilia Alemani seems to turn the tables and makes things inside out
to imagine the post human world differently so that she could eventually bring
a lot of ‘humanity’ into art discourse, something that has turned inhuman in
all sense during the last couple of decades. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="font-size: large;">-JohnyML<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p>JohnyMLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854530824953334475noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8872146559118935939.post-63265812180743681882021-09-18T17:12:00.003+05:302021-11-27T16:43:54.365+05:30Anpu Varkey Deals with Nostalgia in a Graphic Novel Form<p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcpqb4wJn-3U-k726pXj64Bc7wopD7vMesfrGNwMhCk7NSDekiM0vv5iJO-qXZzcbKeo8V3uTaN8PW7fQdau0uuLJ25rpxiHWdW4k-i4uSEyQl5tlRC7HaOY4pvt53G9Y4llqE9SAqJTI/s627/anpu+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="627" data-original-width="489" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcpqb4wJn-3U-k726pXj64Bc7wopD7vMesfrGNwMhCk7NSDekiM0vv5iJO-qXZzcbKeo8V3uTaN8PW7fQdau0uuLJ25rpxiHWdW4k-i4uSEyQl5tlRC7HaOY4pvt53G9Y4llqE9SAqJTI/s320/anpu+1.jpg" width="250" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">(Anpu Varkey)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">If nostalgia has a graphic novel form it is here in Anpu
Varkey’s 2019 self-published book titled ‘Summer’s Children.’ Truffaut-esque in
nature the protagonists in this graphic novel are a pair of siblings who spend
a summer’s day in an extremely ‘meaningful’ fashion. Like a pair of curious
puppies they move around their home looking for sensory experiences and
ultimate fun. Anpu perhaps transposes her remembered childhood in a sylvan
rural scape in Kerala on to these siblings and in a way becomes a witness of
their relentless merry making. It could be even a story that she has imagined
for her lost childhood. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk3rFIb-QzeX33IdGvNl_CfkTtKv-glEG6svPv-QM0b2yHBW4NYRBBdcOWCB2mxVbltAD-_zCbY34Xaspj-4MgrA7sBvbntzAJeFeZq7Z_txM7qjPOP2sWVQfKxGlFX8z4nb9KpFVa8Lg/s960/anpu+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk3rFIb-QzeX33IdGvNl_CfkTtKv-glEG6svPv-QM0b2yHBW4NYRBBdcOWCB2mxVbltAD-_zCbY34Xaspj-4MgrA7sBvbntzAJeFeZq7Z_txM7qjPOP2sWVQfKxGlFX8z4nb9KpFVa8Lg/s320/anpu+2.jpg" width="240" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /> (Summer's Children, a Graphic Novel by Anpu Varkey)</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Anpu Varkey, an international known street artist who likes
to work on the mammoth sized public murals all alone, turning herself into a
live brush perching on the moving cranes and hanging from ropes and pulleys, in
her graphic novels too prefers to see the world from those high and weird
angles. Her style in the graphic novels is different from what she employs
while working on the street art pieces. The public art works and their styles
are often determined by the spaces available and the structures are inherently
intricate on which the artists hardly have any hold. But Anpu Varkey and the
artists of her ilk tame these impossible spaces with their sense of images,
scale and style.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtp5Oa_pPWUZmKZvlFphz_MPlfQ8WxElhT869GijXknMuee28TlM870WGRZP3ULgEnOA4eRt2OdoWpVzr0hW0oo-9E_OwReB0uUVvfwiBw1yK1LpqGqKF1tdMNPMzN7pCiYVLcriWXKvQ/s960/anpu+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtp5Oa_pPWUZmKZvlFphz_MPlfQ8WxElhT869GijXknMuee28TlM870WGRZP3ULgEnOA4eRt2OdoWpVzr0hW0oo-9E_OwReB0uUVvfwiBw1yK1LpqGqKF1tdMNPMzN7pCiYVLcriWXKvQ/s320/anpu+3.jpg" width="240" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje9q9oiOgCxuhVqCF0Pdsnzirm1V-0p3PJk-yv0rNGtp6hDpamDHfI6FZM3WKC4UHSzKMdCu2Nxs5rC6qNTP3k2OZ0V_wvFSUvNK8OXJGu-sXLdujbSKWeKuRN3baFPnOEBjM9jG7mJmw/s960/anpu+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje9q9oiOgCxuhVqCF0Pdsnzirm1V-0p3PJk-yv0rNGtp6hDpamDHfI6FZM3WKC4UHSzKMdCu2Nxs5rC6qNTP3k2OZ0V_wvFSUvNK8OXJGu-sXLdujbSKWeKuRN3baFPnOEBjM9jG7mJmw/s320/anpu+4.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /> (From Summer's Children)</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Graphic novels being intimate expressions of an artist who
is adept in storytelling demand a different approach mainly because of the human
scale as the given surface of expression. There is no need to scale up the
images and the distortions demanded by the huge walls and the perspective
distances are of a different nature when it comes to the graphic novel. Like a
ballerina who is dexterous enough to express both tragedies in grand movements
and comedies in lighter flights of the limbs Anpu Varkey too moves her brushes
different here in the graphic novel. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh27LRAgnfUet2pPDWc0bnrfyc37pAOtZj-ONcTwCnRW8Wuls5KvY21jV_DdOC7jojwEBfPIr0HB28xXJJz0o3TxbzV1XLL5Lpzz7sPoY_Gi9of6na-VbEITddlU2OcRu8_6bKnC-RObg0/s960/anpu+6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh27LRAgnfUet2pPDWc0bnrfyc37pAOtZj-ONcTwCnRW8Wuls5KvY21jV_DdOC7jojwEBfPIr0HB28xXJJz0o3TxbzV1XLL5Lpzz7sPoY_Gi9of6na-VbEITddlU2OcRu8_6bKnC-RObg0/s320/anpu+6.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVuncZ6Hr0t1US2gVDo5DfU-N4lyG1vrvxnrEX3K2-Bk6C3h88IWY0miIbJDlV5iK8Mg9xUOdwEytxD5UiF7lU7uMT4DjFda7O6XA-M5DJtNeD3qEDQ9GqCOI46So03111ZnBUarGG2P4/s960/anpu+5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVuncZ6Hr0t1US2gVDo5DfU-N4lyG1vrvxnrEX3K2-Bk6C3h88IWY0miIbJDlV5iK8Mg9xUOdwEytxD5UiF7lU7uMT4DjFda7O6XA-M5DJtNeD3qEDQ9GqCOI46So03111ZnBUarGG2P4/s320/anpu+5.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;">(From Summer's Children)</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">The siblings are like Esther and Rahel, the famous and
controversial protagonists in the novel, ‘God of Small Things’ by Arundhati
Roy. In fact like Arundhati, Anpu also shares the same local flavor in the
rendering of the story. The siblings are so close to each other that they not
only resemble in form but also in gender. Though there are no characteristic
highlights that differentiate the siblings in terms of gender, one is tend to
feel that the author deliberately makes their genders fluid; a sort of
hermaphrodites who could be either male or female. One has a knicker with a
pair of suspenders and the other doesn’t have it. Do the suspenders indicate
the gender of the boy while the other is left to a fluid zone? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyy9Gl0burv8oesfw0ZSbCxxOhVNc-86mhzy-pWJ__q6iDdvIZlwwa6PET8ungETNC2PDsqMRzr41FXMfoBm6_KQRCBKhSYcJHZ3MnAz-DI6U2RKYxQTV1tg60vA1g4Aszdj5qthA3ACo/s960/anpu+7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyy9Gl0burv8oesfw0ZSbCxxOhVNc-86mhzy-pWJ__q6iDdvIZlwwa6PET8ungETNC2PDsqMRzr41FXMfoBm6_KQRCBKhSYcJHZ3MnAz-DI6U2RKYxQTV1tg60vA1g4Aszdj5qthA3ACo/s320/anpu+7.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGvUHWiz5yM6evOaCJ5gLBtCsmssH6A3lntTNotlpF2ieq4XYNsTlU7aKb-nYlS1c-_92Iwa3TyngSsI8m9U2mkMMKDp_YPcJU0SJ1Ct-rorOcbV6Mtfz9aU8K4tARsSDSOPdVRxU4WvE/s960/anpu+8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGvUHWiz5yM6evOaCJ5gLBtCsmssH6A3lntTNotlpF2ieq4XYNsTlU7aKb-nYlS1c-_92Iwa3TyngSsI8m9U2mkMMKDp_YPcJU0SJ1Ct-rorOcbV6Mtfz9aU8K4tARsSDSOPdVRxU4WvE/s320/anpu+8.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;">(From Summer's Children)</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">The question is relevant only when we see the graphic novel
as an autobiographical tour of the artist/author herself. Keeping the author
out of the narrative (which is almost an impossible task) one could perhaps see
them as two boys snooping around their home and neighborhood. The story opens
with the smell of a jackfruit. Oh yes, in a graphic novel how does one smell
the fragrance of a fruit? Anpu has an answer; she starts off with the extreme
close up of something which as we pull out, I mean turn the pages, comes to be
seen as a jackfruit. Then it is cut open to show the sugary golden fruits and
you do smell and see the golden yellow though these are pictures done in black
and white. Though the images around the children are done realistically, the
children have a painterly fluidity.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqCqQ0li0WmACDG3hG2vgwcAnS9FLzUlhF7ygOPPAxxm-isVOibvxDrVPsH0dFfgJdJcFfb8PBto3waieptmJJ4YqOK-vunz5FMaJaxAxq2nvCSi-Djyhy8V8zmNc91COk7HIx9iD_5hM/s960/anpu+9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqCqQ0li0WmACDG3hG2vgwcAnS9FLzUlhF7ygOPPAxxm-isVOibvxDrVPsH0dFfgJdJcFfb8PBto3waieptmJJ4YqOK-vunz5FMaJaxAxq2nvCSi-Djyhy8V8zmNc91COk7HIx9iD_5hM/s320/anpu+9.jpg" width="240" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLqEb9gEb5d0PSJJ9QTXyZB0woyRBli8U6Gx-rRHstVu4PAUji5gnFzJErlR-qGeuAANv3Ob3cUNrk-04Xk6si0PxBxVXmQp79hOx3eGAlacmxahR7cUHK8Rv1BXD5rHcfXzcd2oIfzCs/s960/anpu+10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLqEb9gEb5d0PSJJ9QTXyZB0woyRBli8U6Gx-rRHstVu4PAUji5gnFzJErlR-qGeuAANv3Ob3cUNrk-04Xk6si0PxBxVXmQp79hOx3eGAlacmxahR7cUHK8Rv1BXD5rHcfXzcd2oIfzCs/s320/anpu+10.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br />(From Summer's Children) </span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Constant form shifters they are like the mischief makers in
a Truffaut’s movie, they are seen anywhere and everywhere in the village,
emulating the acts of the grown up in an imaginary world while the nature goes
on nonchalantly. The children imagine all sorts of pleasures and dangers, yet
they are unstoppable. Anpu hardly portrays the grownups in the world of
children; there is the presence of a grand old lady at the cocoa tree or the
hen’s pen or the man who opens the tender coconut for the children. They are
like Apu and Durga in Pather Panchali; the only difference is that they don’t wish
to travel into the unknown world. The world of imagination ignited by the
lascivious greenery around is more than enough for them. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOzKW_mkVPEzm3m-5dLk0o3HbTMAh21IR5Y16AFpozGcZnfCvHah2cXtZyedLMT2A5Q0o-GoRQ5oERThGSy6EqpWbfAoCtWfJ-bS092u6fwj6xyuYdfwUk5oKOxGSm77JCxyEo2vD7u44/s960/anpu+11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOzKW_mkVPEzm3m-5dLk0o3HbTMAh21IR5Y16AFpozGcZnfCvHah2cXtZyedLMT2A5Q0o-GoRQ5oERThGSy6EqpWbfAoCtWfJ-bS092u6fwj6xyuYdfwUk5oKOxGSm77JCxyEo2vD7u44/s320/anpu+11.jpg" width="240" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4tPWEs5j4f5B_EggrqJLUxmVqNlQAlAw2nPS_xcA5u5zRlFUx-MkMOTO-vuWLG-MicmcdDNBREhNqvKWtS0Jf1CRxwgdXFpGgGL3v4glJdNcKqEsZJXh206unj6t2WkdXU7Ti5Z4adG8/s960/anpu+12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4tPWEs5j4f5B_EggrqJLUxmVqNlQAlAw2nPS_xcA5u5zRlFUx-MkMOTO-vuWLG-MicmcdDNBREhNqvKWtS0Jf1CRxwgdXFpGgGL3v4glJdNcKqEsZJXh206unj6t2WkdXU7Ti5Z4adG8/s320/anpu+12.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /> (From Summer's Children)</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Anpu Varkey is an extremely sensitive artist and an adept
storyteller as she winds up the story with the children looking wistfully at
the night sky filled with stars and suddenly Anpu replicates the world of
wonderful lights in the closer to home realities with the chimney light and the
light of the glow worm. Lying next to the mother or grandmother the children
listen to two musical renditions; of the kri kri sounds of the crickets hiding the
fields, enjoying their nocturnal flourish and of the story of a jackal told by
the mother in a sing song voice. Sleep creeps into their eyes of the children as
they try to see the jackal prowling by and Anpu closes the story taking the
viewers/readers outside to show that a cunning fox is already carrying a hen
away. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAOgOmdqE3C5nXDzis35JYYkGOSo8baibNX2Nm_FFVIxR0WRzyxJXzBglVeCYvxq2SitOLYMqBRv8NuN37gQsaAbDk5kdd6Hdc_u6PDawDdXrK2h0ZSFmp63yEctBAXnERJFFpcKWsEg0/s960/anpu+13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAOgOmdqE3C5nXDzis35JYYkGOSo8baibNX2Nm_FFVIxR0WRzyxJXzBglVeCYvxq2SitOLYMqBRv8NuN37gQsaAbDk5kdd6Hdc_u6PDawDdXrK2h0ZSFmp63yEctBAXnERJFFpcKWsEg0/s320/anpu+13.jpg" width="240" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;">(From Summer's Children)</span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Graphic novels are the latest fad among the new readers though
their favorite styles come from the Japanese Manga and Anime. Anpu Varkey
stands differently like Marjari Satrapi, Joe Sacco and Nicholas Wild. Anpu
tells the story of a village through a pair of siblings and she doesn’t turn
the graphic novel into the more text based productions like Jeff Kinney or Bill
Waterson. Anpu in this work remains more provincial and this provincial narrative
has already got an international traction through the new genre of graphic
novels. Let’s wait for Anpu’s next graphic novel which perhaps would speak of
her journey as a street artist. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">-JohnyML</span><o:p></o:p></p>JohnyMLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854530824953334475noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8872146559118935939.post-10301000843527622832021-08-24T15:58:00.001+05:302021-08-24T15:58:04.842+05:30Parade of Our Own Collective Uncertainties: Paintings by Apurba Nandi<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDsumme7m0ehtll8_2Dnh7D9FXamOt3vBG4xUdganjH4c3WBEB14Y4zib2gRaWksCIo6yMqLzNZ-nOsgzavQ7kwDMbXBbEjGDYhDry08a4rE_JQSbiSacDcetgs1NA_yHmwBwRSWkaEvw/s1337/Apurba.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1321" data-original-width="1337" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDsumme7m0ehtll8_2Dnh7D9FXamOt3vBG4xUdganjH4c3WBEB14Y4zib2gRaWksCIo6yMqLzNZ-nOsgzavQ7kwDMbXBbEjGDYhDry08a4rE_JQSbiSacDcetgs1NA_yHmwBwRSWkaEvw/s320/Apurba.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;">(Artist Apurba Nandi)</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">The timing cannot be better; Apurba Nandi’s solo exhibition
titled ‘A Parade of Uncertain Destinations’ at Delhi’s Palette Art Gallery is
right there at a historical juncture. With the images of the faceless and
hapless people falling off from the landing gears of the rescue flights in the
skies of Afghanistan fresh in memory, the faceless masses that mill around and
about in pre-destined patterns in Nandi’s paintings look like fresh wounds that
refuse to heal. These images of the human beings dig further into our
collective memory that has by now reconciled with the atrocities meted out to
the urban poor who were made to flee while the authorities asked them to ‘stay
where they were’ during the pandemic lockdown days. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLUA-grrxXjZgTd_a40A7eYykAcvBleKoOMJDBCPb_vDhiPSuroMqtHopBBgc1i2ovVJYf8RfrhAsFNXYQaNu8BhAAgi8YDJ4ViR2b1NZjcD_trbOre_MW7TXE_7FvBMvDkguXF9kdsQc/s752/Apurba-solo+show+8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="570" data-original-width="752" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLUA-grrxXjZgTd_a40A7eYykAcvBleKoOMJDBCPb_vDhiPSuroMqtHopBBgc1i2ovVJYf8RfrhAsFNXYQaNu8BhAAgi8YDJ4ViR2b1NZjcD_trbOre_MW7TXE_7FvBMvDkguXF9kdsQc/s320/Apurba-solo+show+8.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;">(Painting by Nandi)</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Meaning of a work of art largely depends on the
readerly/viewerly intentions. One could take the works of Nandi for happy
abstractions made out of human-like pigments a la late Chuck Close. Someone
else could also take them for politicized citizenry invested with
constitutional rights and protections that it assures. The age old theory of
urban spaces being a flux where identities merge creating ‘unmarked’ bodies may
not hold much water these days, especially after the onset of the pandemic that
has changed urbans spaces more controlled, regimented, marked out, surveilled
and if need be subjugated as per the needs of the authoritarian governments. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRzyFdsyQF2A1t15N4Z4ei62BlFAQeIV2SgWMmpEBYL1i_XwbxfhpQv6kxcMEvxPEQGQ0wzS_ovN3yabaD9NwZRr3EQS0ehhpZgcKoXNd8oJocZDJaTavJv9yLFb383B0X6lxAT2ZMBjo/s758/Apurba-solo+show+13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="570" data-original-width="758" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRzyFdsyQF2A1t15N4Z4ei62BlFAQeIV2SgWMmpEBYL1i_XwbxfhpQv6kxcMEvxPEQGQ0wzS_ovN3yabaD9NwZRr3EQS0ehhpZgcKoXNd8oJocZDJaTavJv9yLFb383B0X6lxAT2ZMBjo/s320/Apurba-solo+show+13.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;">(Painting by Nandi)</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">In Nandi, these human parades occur as a result of the
lockdown woes. These works, I believe, embody an unresolvable helplessness of
the artists’ destiny, which is not a collective destiny at all as common
pursuits towards a single goal is never imagined or achieved through creative
works but for the time being artists cannot but think of the human redemption
from this unavoidable viral trap. The fate that has fallen upon the milling
masses with whom the identification cannot go beyond the level of sympathizing through
empathetic visualization, which is ironically a distant and still distancing
way of engagement with the perils that are experienced by someone else, is
never the fate of the artists in general. It is where the helplessness of the
artists comes in; they could register the pain in their own terms or just be
the callous witnesses. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ4i-0s0gYNs8ZyrjU7QbOF8LmTMctV5_54n7h7zErLz56kLRiSGguBgDn-lz2e-JwJsCgtgTGvujAk8qYUpWgG1DRZdbjbPU8TXlX8_FR12faUqJMpDtNdfSTtS_914A-X7LGrpBEBg0/s796/Apurba-Solo+show-14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="570" data-original-width="796" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ4i-0s0gYNs8ZyrjU7QbOF8LmTMctV5_54n7h7zErLz56kLRiSGguBgDn-lz2e-JwJsCgtgTGvujAk8qYUpWgG1DRZdbjbPU8TXlX8_FR12faUqJMpDtNdfSTtS_914A-X7LGrpBEBg0/s320/Apurba-Solo+show-14.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />(Painting by Apurba Nandi) </span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Whose parade are we witnessing while looking at the
largescale paintings of Nandi displayed on the walls of a gallery? And whose
uncertain destinies are they encapsulate in precise and fragmented frames?
Artist here cannot be the documenter of the individual self of those people who
have been rendered abstract not through the enforcement of state cruelties but
through the very experience of them on the roads, dockyards, airstrips, fences
and so on conveyed through mediatized images. These images in turn become another
experience in itself that helps the artists and the people in general to visualize
them in their given conditions. It is a complex process of experiential
cognition, like a mirrored image of an affliction that could be seen in real if
the viewer turns his or her head towards the other side. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLA-ITkMm64fLPumTRWxy2Hk_EVAs7vs68Z6HTo8O6z3z1PVT69F-Z3kcpfJ1LGVbhfLjtS-oQE_Jvj727QIqpDi3IH8IPCu83ZeXgRos6f8pq7hFz06hdPFgwQzmYWdsowlmjtlwEq6M/s770/Apurba-Solo+show-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="570" data-original-width="770" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLA-ITkMm64fLPumTRWxy2Hk_EVAs7vs68Z6HTo8O6z3z1PVT69F-Z3kcpfJ1LGVbhfLjtS-oQE_Jvj727QIqpDi3IH8IPCu83ZeXgRos6f8pq7hFz06hdPFgwQzmYWdsowlmjtlwEq6M/s320/Apurba-Solo+show-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /> (Painting by Nandi)</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">The reluctance that we as a survived lot feel collectively
to look at the other side helps us to continue with our conscientious existence
even in the midst of continuing atrocities. True, the uncertainty of the
uncertain masses who have suddenly become intermediary human beings who could
be received or rejected elsewhere cannot be given a concrete expression and if
one does so it can maximum become press photographs that speak directly and
move the viewers to unimaginable pain. Here art does something else; it
mitigates the pain, sublimates the reality, reorganize the living human beings
into acceptable patterns that not only edify one with their ‘social and art
history’ but also entertain as affable art objects. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM8nkCG9YE79duyQxuPeeMMIx7-e2go3f7lmTysF2l3YP6ZZ9IXv-5Ty6yYvSjPdklaRkxSlXvzTTtq1K-qjIlHJdtxW93WoimzD-brMdipflaQ6dcP-GEFgrOAu8mvNNCEOXnEx62dXU/s858/Apurba-Solo+show-12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="570" data-original-width="858" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM8nkCG9YE79duyQxuPeeMMIx7-e2go3f7lmTysF2l3YP6ZZ9IXv-5Ty6yYvSjPdklaRkxSlXvzTTtq1K-qjIlHJdtxW93WoimzD-brMdipflaQ6dcP-GEFgrOAu8mvNNCEOXnEx62dXU/s320/Apurba-Solo+show-12.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /> (Painting by Nandi)</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">In that sense Nandi cannot do anything other than transform
the human suffering into an affordable visual that could perhaps in the coming
years speak of the sufferings of the human lot in a particular time in history,
without really feeling the pain instead could make others exclaim about the
abilities of a work of art to evoke history and the perils that it contains. This
parade is an abstraction of the other and ironically the other is not the
disenfranchised, dispossessed and disowned human beings but the artistic
feelings for them, which I feel is the responsibility of art because art cannot
do anything to assure a definite destination to these people. Art and artists
can only display their own inability to do anything towards their
rehabilitation. Nandi’s paintings are the parades of our own collective lack of
empathy or sympathy; our own callousness is seen queueing up; these are mirrors
held unto the viewers. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEmi-eTlq9fOM-5rwFo2Kd0G72HU5Dm54aKslsSlGHWG1EwpsDT0YOakOsilVND1CSVo3JnU_imZB0Ya2c9y4E8NI2wFvprU43PJJ4EMNdviEoTnCPHjd5ziqMzEOQBWSmUq1_9gGZORA/s765/Apurba-Solo+show-7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="570" data-original-width="765" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEmi-eTlq9fOM-5rwFo2Kd0G72HU5Dm54aKslsSlGHWG1EwpsDT0YOakOsilVND1CSVo3JnU_imZB0Ya2c9y4E8NI2wFvprU43PJJ4EMNdviEoTnCPHjd5ziqMzEOQBWSmUq1_9gGZORA/s320/Apurba-Solo+show-7.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;">(Painting by Nandi)</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Art historically speaking, Nandi’s works evoke the memories
of the early works of N.S.Harsha, who has done multitudes of people engaged in
common activity like eating or sleeping. Through the repetition, the images are
caused to melt and become a feeling, at times a feeling of absurdity. Nandi’s
works, though they do not follow the color scheme or similar patterns that
Harsha had used, still goad the viewers to connect with a contemporary master
artist like N.S.Harsha. That is not a problem at all because what I emphasis
while saying this is art’s inescapable indebtedness to its own past. Nandi subconsciously
pays tribute to that past of our art.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">-JohnyML <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>JohnyMLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854530824953334475noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8872146559118935939.post-18546830769495281272021-06-17T14:49:00.003+05:302021-06-17T14:49:48.045+05:30Auctioning an Invisible Sculpture<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Immateriality of a Work of Art and its Quirky Operation in Contemporary Art History</span></p><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXDlztROVT7IT2FzvQ6r-ITch6XMZOkvh_S_MvHIJI3S3BGiQOp3MDgYGNBDe3XM3gIA5t8f_zzlS_t1_bpDTOmTdtCG9ii6dNGUoCIy5sLSQF7fANTmjoG3ir_ybNr-DWD0EXp8OzNEA/s1200/garau+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXDlztROVT7IT2FzvQ6r-ITch6XMZOkvh_S_MvHIJI3S3BGiQOp3MDgYGNBDe3XM3gIA5t8f_zzlS_t1_bpDTOmTdtCG9ii6dNGUoCIy5sLSQF7fANTmjoG3ir_ybNr-DWD0EXp8OzNEA/s320/garau+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">(Salvatore Garau)</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">“Salvatore Garau, a 67-year-old Italian artist, auctioned an “immaterial sculpture” — as the artwork does not exist — for $18,300 (Rs 13,33,459.70).” -Indian Express</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">I am not surprised. I am only curious why Italian artists like Salvatore Garau get such ideas. Garau is not the first person to do such non-existent work. In 1960, Piero Manzoni had created his own kind of immaterial sculpture or a sort of non-existing art that commands respect on the one hand and monetary benefit on the other. Manzoni was acting upon the fact of reducing anything into a fetish that could have been easily commoditized. What it needed was simply the signature of the artist. The signature validates art and validated art fetches money. When the validation is not found, the seller makes provenance to validate all his or her claims. That is the story of art market in nutshell. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjthHDh4k6v595hIgOx0UXw4EtrFKBXp2Y2maRB6Ayi6AZrvKrRaPDE2WPcvTwgkZhnvxGf-o1ZmSM2y9Iisq_TtDC3HdIsiMc1Qv9nrdsGaXQGbhqZGyhIIhQsc6-51GRBYtc1Xhugo54/s1536/garau+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1267" data-original-width="1536" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjthHDh4k6v595hIgOx0UXw4EtrFKBXp2Y2maRB6Ayi6AZrvKrRaPDE2WPcvTwgkZhnvxGf-o1ZmSM2y9Iisq_TtDC3HdIsiMc1Qv9nrdsGaXQGbhqZGyhIIhQsc6-51GRBYtc1Xhugo54/s320/garau+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">(Sculpture by Garau)</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">You could sell a non-existing work of art provided you, as an artist, have enough conviction on what you have done and the ability to convince others. Do not worry much about the buyers because any way they come to buy with this total submission of disbelief at the altar of market. But one should be wary of the critics and skeptical viewers. They may, more often than not, have the tendency of questioning it. They could beat you up if you are too pushy or less of conviction. They have beaten up Marina Abromovic and Ulay in one of their performances. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSFHQyy0eImLx4ovUS8cGWiLv1dXaX_eZstoLGkAyCMDnZjQ8FIFdaQqlQmaAna0IeZHGY3zX0atejOjiQ-JFVGkDZ7QyIcPt4F5t0ejLb-PGaEat8zx2N6Vu6BepQGqKA9BGXhB-LgRc/s256/garau+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="256" data-original-width="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSFHQyy0eImLx4ovUS8cGWiLv1dXaX_eZstoLGkAyCMDnZjQ8FIFdaQqlQmaAna0IeZHGY3zX0atejOjiQ-JFVGkDZ7QyIcPt4F5t0ejLb-PGaEat8zx2N6Vu6BepQGqKA9BGXhB-LgRc/s0/garau+3.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">When I say Garau is not the only one, Italy has produced artists like Maurizio Cattelan who proudly claims that he has never even touched a note pad to make his work of art. Yes, I said note pad, either to scribble down his ideas or make a cursory drawing which could be handed over to the craftsman or to the engineer so that they could make it into its materialist form. Cattelan reiterates that he always got his works done only through oral communication; a sort of expressing his desires to the fabricator and waiting for the results. If the frequency levels are right anybody could get their works done from a good craftsperson. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdxg6obIeN2wkOTlfQcvy6rEWntRDXMDefueabWaYRO1DhPRN0JKPvLKYy9NUJbtTbEsTHNQbFUZ1eQsThZiBCqFpyaz3csEMsvtJwgtHoflF7dN6oAPTEwT0Q8o6grAZgh3u9Ooew8Rw/s960/garau+5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="658" data-original-width="960" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdxg6obIeN2wkOTlfQcvy6rEWntRDXMDefueabWaYRO1DhPRN0JKPvLKYy9NUJbtTbEsTHNQbFUZ1eQsThZiBCqFpyaz3csEMsvtJwgtHoflF7dN6oAPTEwT0Q8o6grAZgh3u9Ooew8Rw/s320/garau+5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">When it came to Manzoni, making immaterial art, he found his body secretions and breath more useful than any other material. The sheer feeling of abject and disgust that his works evoked, Manzoni thought, would keep his buyers away. Contrary to his belief they were bought and kept in the museums. He even signed the back of the women who would willingly become his ‘living/live sculptures’. In 1960 he breathed into balloons and singed the planks on which the balloons were placed. He called ‘Artist’s Breath’. He even made a work with his own turd and called it, ‘Artist’s Shit’. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgps0CPMKuWlYCsPLrf5E0N94JDBaNr_DuJEurBOY68mvLlvGhb1tVROcdyIVe2JQD7sf0IXTw_XaoIKldQg3DBcUeZJn4s9vRISMKUeaZxczl2fiZhnEuwm9BNROIY4Nl7wxO-JT1mJKo/s1064/garau+6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="572" data-original-width="1064" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgps0CPMKuWlYCsPLrf5E0N94JDBaNr_DuJEurBOY68mvLlvGhb1tVROcdyIVe2JQD7sf0IXTw_XaoIKldQg3DBcUeZJn4s9vRISMKUeaZxczl2fiZhnEuwm9BNROIY4Nl7wxO-JT1mJKo/s320/garau+6.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Italian artists were perhaps over reacting to the fact that everything about art was being commodified in the US market. The age old resentment of Italy being pushed out of the status of art center, first losing to Paris and then to New York must have made it react ferociously, or even playfully. Arte Povera was initiated by Michelangelo Pistoletto, who thought of making art using the basest of base materials, including trash. Catalan followed the suit and now we have another in the persona of Garau. Americans were also not behind. Sol Lewitt asked the museums to ‘make’ his works on the walls by sending instructions from the US. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4CaU4naU6150A-wlzsl5a8MyV9jfRuhohYIaNRulH0Paj_UUQHOtYirLi73773e-QCMpqSnTqgKPPJ03IMQBNAha5jfNrzbULYMWVCuYrDMERiqDr92SgMcm2Tupf5GTdRLP1dLeqdqE/s1024/garau+7.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1024" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4CaU4naU6150A-wlzsl5a8MyV9jfRuhohYIaNRulH0Paj_UUQHOtYirLi73773e-QCMpqSnTqgKPPJ03IMQBNAha5jfNrzbULYMWVCuYrDMERiqDr92SgMcm2Tupf5GTdRLP1dLeqdqE/s320/garau+7.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">British artist Martin Creed, surprised the art world by bagging the 2001 Turner Prize for his work Light on and Off, exhibited previously at the Tate Modern in 2000 and the award went into controversy for the people had been scandalized to see one of the empty halls of the Tate Modern, devoid of even one single work of art but a light bulb going on and off in regular intervals. Even the tabloids picked up the issue, resulting into the making of artist so popular and dear to the British public. You need not always do a good painting to be a national award winning artist. He even shocked the people by putting a blob of blu tack on the wall, arguing that it was the adhesive that held the works on the walls so it should get a chance to be a work of art itself. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm3PbM4IOdN77P8l8-hehO2QmAF6QTmJeQQ13LbOJksXJDrbih5i3hDB_Mmt6N3Wneo2udLsP-mHQxJTiUZBlPMVGwyjO6gDNom1cA7V9mvKCWcWoh0GVn6XLm7MlQ8iORzcwpstuA8_M/s1200/garau+8.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm3PbM4IOdN77P8l8-hehO2QmAF6QTmJeQQ13LbOJksXJDrbih5i3hDB_Mmt6N3Wneo2udLsP-mHQxJTiUZBlPMVGwyjO6gDNom1cA7V9mvKCWcWoh0GVn6XLm7MlQ8iORzcwpstuA8_M/s320/garau+8.gif" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">I am not surprised to see Garau auctioning off his non-existent work of art. But I am surprised to see people lapping up the news within total willing suspension of disbelief. This had happened also with the Sotheby’s Auction in 2018 when a Banksy work auto-shredded during the time of it being auctioned for $1.4 million. People around the act gasped or the acted so but the people all over the world were amused. They must have felt that once an while a work of art should also go into shredder, irrespective of it fetching money or not. Italians however seems to lead the pack when it comes to atrocious innovations in art making and auctioning them off. Or are they still behind the underground art of China where the artists allegedly chop of human bodies and fetus and even engage in necromancy?</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">-JohnyML</div></div>JohnyMLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854530824953334475noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8872146559118935939.post-60508410793139258342021-05-04T13:21:00.004+05:302021-05-04T13:21:43.287+05:30Loss of Decisive Moments or its Endless Continuity: About the Lack of Arresting Pictures from the fields of Death, Despair and Electoral Victories<p><span style="font-size: large;">Deserted streets from all over the world at a given had
caught the imagination of the Reuters photographers and the series had become a
rage and motivated many other photographers to venture out into the streets and
click similar ones. The pictures were eerie in their very appearance but there
was a strange beauty to them, a beauty that none had witnessed till then. The
undressed virginity of the streets beckoned the human beings who had been
locked up for around eight days straight. The photographs were taken on 31<sup>st</sup>
March 2020. Still trying to figure out how to deal with the seclusion imposed
on them, human beings were some sort of a living mess without the regular
messiness; the cupboards and cutleries remained untouched. Bed lines were not
changed. Time slowed down until one could listen to the slow ticking or smooth
sailing of the clock hands.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">The first wave was photogenic in many ways and there was a
constant supply of images from all over the world, especially from India; of
laborers vanishing into the remote villages, hapless youngsters getting
thrashed by the lawless law enforces and images of uncountable and unbearable
suffering and pain. Each picture vied for attention; they shrieked from the
pages or screens for our conscience to wake up and do something. Dried rotis
scattered all over the railway tracks, blistered feet of young and the old,
children walking on their toes on the cruelly melting asphalt roads on the days
of merciless Indian summer. Artists safely marooned at homes had many images to
bite into and chew too; masked human figures were the mildest of them. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Somehow the second coming of Corona has not provided the
world with arresting photographs. Is it because the pandemic is not now
orchestrated itself simultaneously and severely in different parts of the
world? May be that is the one reason for the lack of impactful images. People
dying in the Indian streets, pavements, in front of the failed health care
systems did make touching pictures but the images were still isolated in their
frames and too scattered within Indian cities to create a solid and focused
impact. The funeral pyres burning even on the residential parks and footpaths,
the mass cremations and so on were registered for the world by the BBC
photographers. An aerial shot of lights; it was the anti-thesis of that day
when the megalomaniac Prime Minister had asked the country to light lamps that
night for expressing gratitude to the health workers. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Tragedies always do not make good pictures. Prolonged
tragedies scarcely make good photographs especially when the decisive points
are everywhere, all the time, non-stop. So they make impactful videos and
reels, helping television camerapersons to do the needful. Photographs are the
static statements of an event whereas video cameras see events as events in its
continuity. Or is it the over exposure tragedies through videography that has
rendered the photographs of the same event less impactful? I am not sure. I was
looking for some interesting photographs from the election campaigns, the
winning and losing camps, but could not find any. People were prevented from
celebrating the electoral victory considering the pandemic but the
photographers were not asked to stay at home. Somehow, none could come up with
a good photograph. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Photography is a medium that tells lies to establish a truth
but relies on a lot of truth when it wants to establish no lie. News
photographers and documentary photographers are destined to capture the
perceived reality in aesthetically presentable frames. If that is the case, the
perceived reality seems to have turned cold and uninspiring, be it the scenes
from the pandemic affected locations or from the victory stands of the election
candidates. Most of the thanksgiving photographs issued by the political
parties and the victorious candidates are not candid; they are photoshopped and
airbrushed images. We are in a time when photographs from the real locations do
not look real. They may be look like pictures from wastelands nothing but
endless agony in offer. Has death and despair killed the photographable
moments? Has victory itself gone into the depths of existence to negotiate with
the futility of winning and losing?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">-JohnyML</span><o:p></o:p></p>JohnyMLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854530824953334475noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8872146559118935939.post-61256815151271896392021-04-28T20:05:00.000+05:302021-04-28T20:05:00.618+05:30Art Thoughts 3. Importance of Cultivating Friends in Media<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Cultivate friends in media and if you are an artist it is a
pre-requisite. Do not wait for the art historians and critics whose nose are up
in the air, to come and take a cursory glance before they go back to their dens
to pick up their pens or log into their laptops and jab in the words and ideas
about you and your works, stuff you have not even thought about or dreamt of and
come up with a critique of the art work that you have taken a few months or a
few years to create, and demolish it in one go or praise to the heavens where
your work in fact do not have any space as you yourself are sure about but have
already found its place in the hell of discourse down there on there on the
earth itself. So cultivate friends in media who talk about you and your works
the way the bees do when they come to the flowers. Don’t you know the bees do
not do anything to the flowers nor do the change the fragrance of the pollens;
they just carry and disseminate elsewhere.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Do you think I am cynical when I say this? No, I am not
cynical but am trying to be as sincere as possible, as vehement as a critic who
could muster up courage to tell the truth. A critic or a historian is not going
to help you immediately, here and now. Their job is there in the future and
they are like the carriers of a certain gene along the streams of thoughts and
bloods, striving to make them relevant at some point in time. Think of it.
Maximum that could become revelations gained as you pour into the toms in real
time or scroll up or down in the virtual time. Minimum is that they could
become the provenance in some auction where works literally go under the hammer
of economics and get encased in super strong cases that would in turn go into
the vaults or walls till they are called up again to do the service to
economics. But people from media are not like that. Aha, they talk about you
and your works, exactly the way you want and the way you desire. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Oh dear media men and women who come to the places where
works of art displayed, take your seat at the reception or art the café out
there, go through the press material that you hold dear as your life line, and
much over the goodies that you have just been given and hark upon the words
that the artists have in reserve. You may hear an odd word that sounds so high
and mighty among the simple talks that the artists usually have. You run to the
urinal first to ease yourself once you are back in the office, then to the
online thesaurus so that you could discern what is said and what is unsaid in
the press release. You have a tendency to copy to repeat the press release so
it is always good for the readers, no matter the daily that they subscribe most
of the have the same material on art. And I do not make this condescending comment
on the journos. Some of them are so good that they kick the press release into
the place where it belongs, a dust bin and take out their smartphones and play
the record in which they have registered your seemingly intelligent rambling. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">See artists, unlike the critics, these journalists are
gifted with readable vocabulary and they know how to employ them in the right
contexts and eke out the right responses from people. And remember, they are so
good at cooking up things when it comes to making up a feature that explains
the life, times and works of an artist. Any artist invariably starts off from a
remote village where his father was a communist and mother, an illiterate. Then
he goes to the big town to study art because he was inspired by a local school
teacher. He gave him some books and some names and he is hooked. Good they were
not crude pedophiles. After the education you to the city to struggle and you
make it and you come back to the village. All what you want to do with your
life is to uplift your state into the heavens of international art. If you were
born in a rich family and had the luck to study abroad, the story is always
like how you have spent all your time in the museums and galleries and got a
head start with good art. Stories are made for you neatly by the media friends
and you need them. If you don’t have friends in media you are as good as dead. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">-JohnyML<o:p></o:p></p>JohnyMLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854530824953334475noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8872146559118935939.post-24785656453186679292021-04-27T20:28:00.004+05:302021-04-27T20:28:20.343+05:30Art Thoughts 2<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Artists of the world wake up! You have a lot to lose, not
just chains. In fact there are no chains around you no. If you think you have
one, then you must be hallucinating. The governments are no longer interested
in your paintings or sculptures or any other work of art because your artistic
acts no longer matter to the governments. They have become so apathetic and
ruthless therefore they are not going to chain you. Governments are only
concerned about facilitating the corporations. The corporations are concerned about
manipulating big data. Data, as they say, is the new crude. In the long run the
majority is going to be irrelevant in the game. Artists are a lot that faces
the threat of irrelevancy. Why so, let me explain.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Creating art is one thing and making money out of it in the
market is another thing, so says Jasper Johns. And do we need a Jasper Johns to
tell that now? He had said it long back before many of you were born even. The
current market is all about the object experience of art and its conversion
into monetary value. But of late, we are talking about the NFTs- the
Non-Fungible Tokens. It may sound so good to the ears of the artists. Your work
cannot be replicated once the NFT is here. You are the unique creator and your creation
has been transported into the digital realm, with a virgin code, so pristine,
and the kind of one that goes back into the previous state once the
monetization with it is done. But in the long run, it looks like there is a
problem. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">NFT talks about the digital piece even without the original
one; original is perishable. At times it is forcibly destroyed depending on the
nature of transaction. Next is nothing but an NFT whose original never existed!
Who is then the maker of it? It is a simple question with a simple answer. The
AI could do it for the market as you are made obsolete by the market itself. A
work of art made to order to serve a particular economic purpose. It is
projected that in the near future the number of global population that
understands economics operations in the digital realm will be zero. You cannot
fight against a system that you don’t understand. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So what are you going to do with your art and artistic
skills? Your art could give you some sort of existential relevancy for the time
being. But then even if you are a professional artist, your services are no
longer needed. What is the point then in continuing with something that doesn’t
create any value in the market? You may find some aesthetical value within your
own limited functional society. But that society also would go for a sea change
sooner than later. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">When AI can replace HI (human intelligence), and if it
happens in a decade or so what will be the role of the artists in the society? I
am no doomsday prophet. But there are chances of art becoming obsolete or turning
into some sort of a primitive human act. May be it is time that artists wake up
and think about the present day deeply and derive strategies from a world that
keeps evolving in terms of info-technology and bio-technology, two factors that
speed up change in unprecedented and unpremeditated ways. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">-JohnyML<o:p></o:p></p>JohnyMLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854530824953334475noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8872146559118935939.post-76575663868980544352021-04-27T20:27:00.007+05:302021-04-27T20:27:41.085+05:30Art Thoughts 1<p><span style="color: var(--primary-text); font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bad artists tend to look for and talk about good art and often they are excruciatingly right in their findings and appreciation whereas good artists always tend to look for bad art why because in bad art lies a lot of elements that given a chance could bloom into good art. Interestingly enough good artists are wonderfully adept in picking up those little good elements from bad art and giving them a fantastic flourish in their own works. What does it say? Bad artists in their search become scavengers for good art and are enamored by its ability to enthrall and also slightly put off by their own inability to make use of those elements from the good art to better their own works. But the good artists who work on the elements from the bad art further the very idea of art making. In a way bad art is what triggers good art and there is a strong connection between the good and bad art as well as artists. The difference between them is fundamental though. Bad artists appreciate the living good artists but the living good artists are stingy in returning their appreciation. So they reserve their good words only for the dead and well documented bad artists. </span></p><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="" dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="ecm0bbzt hv4rvrfc e5nlhep0 dati1w0a" data-ad-comet-preview="message" data-ad-preview="message" id="jsc_c_4v" style="font-family: inherit; padding: 4px 16px;"><div class="j83agx80 cbu4d94t ew0dbk1b irj2b8pg" style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: -5px; margin-top: -5px;"><div class="qzhwtbm6 knvmm38d" style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px;"><span class="d2edcug0 hpfvmrgz qv66sw1b c1et5uql lr9zc1uh a8c37x1j keod5gw0 nxhoafnm aigsh9s9 d3f4x2em fe6kdd0r mau55g9w c8b282yb iv3no6db jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v knj5qynh oo9gr5id hzawbc8m" dir="auto" style="color: var(--primary-text); display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; line-height: 1.3333; max-width: 100%; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;"><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">-JohnyML</div></div></span></div></div></div></div></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="stjgntxs ni8dbmo4 l82x9zwi uo3d90p7 h905i5nu monazrh9" data-visualcompletion="ignore-dynamic" style="border-radius: 0px 0px 8px 8px; font-family: inherit; overflow: hidden;"><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="background-color: white; color: #1c1e21; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="tvfksri0 ozuftl9m jmbispl3 olo4ujb6" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 12px; margin-right: 12px;"><div class="rq0escxv l9j0dhe7 du4w35lb j83agx80 pfnyh3mw i1fnvgqd gs1a9yip owycx6da btwxx1t3 ph5uu5jm b3onmgus e5nlhep0 ecm0bbzt nkwizq5d roh60bw9 mysgfdmx hddg9phg" style="align-items: stretch; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; flex-flow: row nowrap; flex-shrink: 0; 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border-left-color: var(--always-dark-overlay); border-right-color: var(--always-dark-overlay); border-style: solid; border-top-color: var(--always-dark-overlay); border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; display: inline-flex; flex-basis: auto; flex-direction: row; flex-shrink: 0; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; min-height: 0px; min-width: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-align: inherit; touch-action: manipulation; user-select: none; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><div class="n00je7tq arfg74bv qs9ysxi8 k77z8yql i09qtzwb n7fi1qx3 b5wmifdl hzruof5a pmk7jnqg j9ispegn kr520xx4 c5ndavph art1omkt ot9fgl3s" data-visualcompletion="ignore" style="border-radius: 4px; font-family: inherit; inset: 0px; opacity: 0; pointer-events: none; position: absolute; transition-duration: var(--fds-duration-extra-extra-short-out); transition-property: opacity; transition-timing-function: var(--fds-animation-fade-out);"></div></div><div aria-label="Change Like reaction" class="oajrlxb2 gs1a9yip g5ia77u1 mtkw9kbi tlpljxtp qensuy8j ppp5ayq2 goun2846 ccm00jje s44p3ltw mk2mc5f4 rt8b4zig n8ej3o3l agehan2d sk4xxmp2 rq0escxv nhd2j8a9 pq6dq46d mg4g778l btwxx1t3 pfnyh3mw p7hjln8o kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x tgvbjcpo hpfvmrgz b4ylihy8 rz4wbd8a b40mr0ww a8nywdso pmk7jnqg i1ao9s8h esuyzwwr f1sip0of du4w35lb lzcic4wl abiwlrkh p8dawk7l pphx12oy hmalg0qr q45zohi1 g0aa4cga" role="button" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; align-items: stretch; background-color: transparent; border-bottom-color: var(--always-dark-overlay); border-left-color: var(--always-dark-overlay); border-right-color: var(--always-dark-overlay); border-style: solid; border-top-color: var(--always-dark-overlay); border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; clip-path: polygon(0px 0px, 0px 0px, 0px 0px, 0px 0px); clip: rect(0px, 0px, 0px, 0px); cursor: pointer; display: inline-flex; flex-basis: auto; flex-direction: row; flex-shrink: 0; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; min-height: 0px; min-width: 0px; outline: none; padding: 13px 0px; position: absolute; right: 6px; text-align: inherit; top: 1px; touch-action: manipulation; user-select: none; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><i class="hu5pjgll m6k467ps sp_ynHRILwKcJ5 sx_6296fc" style="background-image: url("/rsrc.php/v3/y8/r/YYQaAgraUZ4.png"); background-position: 0px -912px; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: auto; display: inline-block; filter: var(--filter-secondary-icon); height: 16px; vertical-align: -0.25em; width: 16px;"></i><div class="n00je7tq arfg74bv qs9ysxi8 k77z8yql i09qtzwb n7fi1qx3 b5wmifdl hzruof5a pmk7jnqg j9ispegn kr520xx4 c5ndavph art1omkt ot9fgl3s" data-visualcompletion="ignore" style="border-radius: inherit; font-family: inherit; inset: 0px; opacity: 0; pointer-events: none; position: absolute; transition-duration: var(--fds-duration-extra-extra-short-out); transition-property: opacity; transition-timing-function: var(--fds-animation-fade-out);"></div></div></div><div class="rq0escxv l9j0dhe7 du4w35lb j83agx80 cbu4d94t g5gj957u d2edcug0 hpfvmrgz rj1gh0hx buofh1pr n8tt0mok hyh9befq iuny7tx3 ipjc6fyt" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex: 1 1 0px; font-family: inherit; max-width: 100%; min-width: 0px; padding: 6px 2px; position: relative; z-index: 0;"><div aria-label="Leave a comment" class="oajrlxb2 gs1a9yip g5ia77u1 mtkw9kbi tlpljxtp qensuy8j ppp5ayq2 goun2846 ccm00jje s44p3ltw mk2mc5f4 rt8b4zig n8ej3o3l agehan2d sk4xxmp2 rq0escxv nhd2j8a9 pq6dq46d mg4g778l btwxx1t3 pfnyh3mw p7hjln8o kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x tgvbjcpo hpfvmrgz jb3vyjys rz4wbd8a qt6c0cv9 a8nywdso l9j0dhe7 i1ao9s8h esuyzwwr f1sip0of du4w35lb lzcic4wl abiwlrkh p8dawk7l" role="button" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; align-items: stretch; background-color: transparent; border-bottom-color: var(--always-dark-overlay); border-left-color: var(--always-dark-overlay); border-right-color: var(--always-dark-overlay); border-style: solid; border-top-color: var(--always-dark-overlay); border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; display: inline-flex; flex-basis: auto; flex-direction: row; flex-shrink: 0; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; min-height: 0px; min-width: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-align: inherit; touch-action: manipulation; user-select: none; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><div class="rq0escxv l9j0dhe7 du4w35lb j83agx80 g5gj957u rj1gh0hx buofh1pr hpfvmrgz taijpn5t bp9cbjyn owycx6da btwxx1t3 d1544ag0 tw6a2znq jb3vyjys dlv3wnog rl04r1d5 mysgfdmx hddg9phg qu8okrzs g0qnabr5" style="align-items: center; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; flex-flow: row nowrap; flex: 1 1 0px; font-family: inherit; height: 44px; justify-content: center; margin: -6px -4px; min-width: 0px; padding-left: 12px; padding-right: 12px; padding-top: 0px; position: relative; white-space: nowrap; z-index: 0;"><div class="rq0escxv l9j0dhe7 du4w35lb j83agx80 cbu4d94t pfnyh3mw d2edcug0 hpfvmrgz ph5uu5jm b3onmgus iuny7tx3 ipjc6fyt" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-shrink: 0; font-family: inherit; max-width: 100%; min-width: 0px; padding: 6px 4px; position: relative; z-index: 0;"><i class="hu5pjgll m6k467ps sp_QxJKBMW4z9y sx_cbe371" style="background-image: url("/rsrc.php/v3/y_/r/Bw0fReI9M7r.png"); background-position: -42px -169px; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: auto; display: inline-block; filter: var(--filter-secondary-icon); height: 18px; vertical-align: -0.25em; width: 18px;"></i></div><div class="rq0escxv l9j0dhe7 du4w35lb j83agx80 cbu4d94t pfnyh3mw d2edcug0 hpfvmrgz ph5uu5jm b3onmgus iuny7tx3 ipjc6fyt" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-shrink: 0; font-family: inherit; max-width: 100%; min-width: 0px; padding: 6px 4px; position: relative; z-index: 0;"><span class="d2edcug0 hpfvmrgz qv66sw1b c1et5uql lr9zc1uh a8c37x1j keod5gw0 nxhoafnm aigsh9s9 d3f4x2em fe6kdd0r mau55g9w c8b282yb iv3no6db jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v lrazzd5p m9osqain" dir="auto" style="color: var(--secondary-text); display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; font-weight: 600; line-height: 1.3333; max-width: 100%; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;"><br /><br /></span></div></div></div></div><div class="rq0escxv l9j0dhe7 du4w35lb j83agx80 cbu4d94t g5gj957u d2edcug0 hpfvmrgz rj1gh0hx buofh1pr n8tt0mok hyh9befq iuny7tx3 ipjc6fyt" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex: 1 1 0px; font-family: inherit; max-width: 100%; min-width: 0px; padding: 6px 2px; position: relative; z-index: 0;"><div aria-label="Send this to friends or post it on your timeline." class="oajrlxb2 gs1a9yip g5ia77u1 mtkw9kbi tlpljxtp qensuy8j ppp5ayq2 goun2846 ccm00jje s44p3ltw mk2mc5f4 rt8b4zig n8ej3o3l agehan2d sk4xxmp2 rq0escxv nhd2j8a9 pq6dq46d mg4g778l btwxx1t3 pfnyh3mw p7hjln8o kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x tgvbjcpo hpfvmrgz jb3vyjys rz4wbd8a qt6c0cv9 a8nywdso l9j0dhe7 i1ao9s8h esuyzwwr f1sip0of du4w35lb lzcic4wl abiwlrkh p8dawk7l" role="button" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; align-items: stretch; background-color: transparent; border-bottom-color: var(--always-dark-overlay); border-left-color: var(--always-dark-overlay); border-right-color: var(--always-dark-overlay); border-style: solid; border-top-color: var(--always-dark-overlay); border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; display: inline-flex; flex-basis: auto; flex-direction: row; flex-shrink: 0; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; min-height: 0px; min-width: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-align: inherit; touch-action: manipulation; user-select: none; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><div class="rq0escxv l9j0dhe7 du4w35lb j83agx80 g5gj957u rj1gh0hx buofh1pr hpfvmrgz taijpn5t bp9cbjyn owycx6da btwxx1t3 d1544ag0 tw6a2znq jb3vyjys dlv3wnog rl04r1d5 mysgfdmx hddg9phg qu8okrzs g0qnabr5" style="align-items: center; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; flex-flow: row nowrap; flex: 1 1 0px; font-family: inherit; height: 44px; justify-content: center; margin: -6px -4px; min-width: 0px; padding-left: 12px; padding-right: 12px; padding-top: 0px; position: relative; white-space: nowrap; z-index: 0;"><div class="rq0escxv l9j0dhe7 du4w35lb j83agx80 cbu4d94t pfnyh3mw d2edcug0 hpfvmrgz ph5uu5jm b3onmgus iuny7tx3 ipjc6fyt" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-shrink: 0; font-family: inherit; max-width: 100%; min-width: 0px; padding: 6px 4px; position: relative; z-index: 0;"><i class="hu5pjgll m6k467ps sp_QxJKBMW4z9y sx_2b3eaf" style="background-image: url("/rsrc.php/v3/y_/r/Bw0fReI9M7r.png"); background-position: -38px -190px; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: auto; display: inline-block; filter: var(--filter-secondary-icon); height: 18px; vertical-align: -0.25em; width: 18px;"></i></div><div class="rq0escxv l9j0dhe7 du4w35lb j83agx80 cbu4d94t pfnyh3mw d2edcug0 hpfvmrgz ph5uu5jm b3onmgus iuny7tx3 ipjc6fyt" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-shrink: 0; font-family: inherit; max-width: 100%; min-width: 0px; padding: 6px 4px; position: relative; z-index: 0;"><span class="d2edcug0 hpfvmrgz qv66sw1b c1et5uql lr9zc1uh a8c37x1j keod5gw0 nxhoafnm aigsh9s9 d3f4x2em fe6kdd0r mau55g9w c8b282yb iv3no6db jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v lrazzd5p m9osqain" dir="auto" style="color: var(--secondary-text); display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; font-weight: 600; line-height: 1.3333; max-width: 100%; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;"><br /><br /></span></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="cwj9ozl2 tvmbv18p" style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 4px;"></div></div></div></div>JohnyMLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854530824953334475noreply@blogger.com0