(Man in the Chalk Circle by NN Rimzon)
In 1985, Kasauli Art Centre, New Delhi presented an
exhibition, perhaps a first of its kind, titled ‘Seven Young Sculptors’. There
was no curatorial claim in the humble black and white brochure though there was
a ‘catalogue’ essay written by a twenty seven year old Anita Dube. The
participating artists were also more or less the same age and this exhibition
is said to be a trailblazer for the Radical Group of Artists who would later
change the course of thinking about art in Kerala and elsewhere by
fundamentally reimagining an art scenario through romantic and revolutionary
terms; perhaps all the revolutions have a streak of romanticism in them. N.N.Rimzon
was one of the participants as the others being K.P.Krishnakumar, Alex Mathew,
Asokan Poduval, Pushpamala N, Prithpal Singh Sehdev Ladi and Khushbash
Shehravat.
(NN Rimzon)
Rimzon’s work was titled ‘Man in the Chalk Circle.’ Influence
of Brecht, the German playwright and his Epic theatre was very much in the air
and his retelling of a 14th century Chinese story by Li Xingdao as ‘Caucasian
Chalk Circle’ had taken not only the field of theatre but also the intellectual
domain by force. It was a metaphor for making the right choice; may be the
choice was between the natural owners of Germany, that’s the people of Germany
and the artificial claimants of it, the Nazis. Partly action-oriented and
partly existential the chalk circle had also forwarded the Hamlet-ian dilemma, ‘to
be or not to be’ in a different light. 1980s had posed such a political as well
as existential dilemma before the artists who had just come of age by passing
through the fires of Naxalite revolution and the notorious political Emergency
imposed by the late Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi.
(Man with Tools by NN Rimzon)
(Speaking Stones by NN Rimzon)
‘Man in the Chalk Circle’ by Rimzon brings out this dilemma
of the time. A man seated on the floor is seen inside a chalk circle that
limits his freedom of movement. May be the man does not want to make a move at
all because the posture of his sitting is awkward as the splayed legs show. His
bulging eyes, remotely caricaturing the artist’s face itself in a brutal and
comic way at once, looks into the empty space before him. You would see such
vacant staring in the works of Ron Mueck in late 1990s and in the new
millennium. I am not going to make any suggestion that this ‘gaze’ (which we
could see later in the works of Ravindra Reddy also, a contemporary of Rimzon)
is pioneered by Rimzon or something of that sort. However, the gaze of the man
in the chalk circle is powerful enough to express his dilemma; to be or to be.
The chalk circle, like the mythological Lakshman Rekha becomes an
externalization of internal fears as well as the internalization of external
limitations. It is interesting notice that for a long time in his career Rimzon
kept on experimenting with circular or semi-circular forms that either bordered
the central figure (Man with Tools) or defined his space almost suffocating him
(Speaking Stones).
(Stand Still by Ajitkumar G)
The chalk circle is a metaphor that has become a reality in
the recent times, especially when the spreading of the Corona virus became a
socio-medical anxiety. Before we go into the details of it and how such chalk
circles appeared in the works of artists, it is imperative to see a very
important work, perhaps under-discussed, from 2014. Titled ‘Stand Still’ this
process, happening, performative installation that turned living human beings
into art exhibits or components of an exhibition was intricately political and
overtly reflecting the mood of an ongoing socio-political and economic struggle
right in front of the Government Secretariat in Trivandrum, Kerala. Ajitkumar G
is the artist who made this timely work, mainly taking the cue from the history
of an extended political struggle from 2009 to 2014. This
installation-process-happening art exhibition took place in the conventional
exhibition space at Vyloppalli Cultural Centre in Trivandrum for seven days.
Perhaps, for the first time in history of art, a political protest was brought
into a gallery space with the protestors turning into art works and viewers at
once.
(Ajitkumar G)
To understand Ajitkumar’s interventional art piece, ‘Stand
Still’ one also has to get a glimpse of the said political struggle which had
inspired the artist. Despite land reform acts and promises from the successive
governments, the people from the Adivasi/tribal communities in Kerala were
denied socio-economic and political rights over their ‘own’ forest lands. Whenever
they rose up in protest demanding right to land and live the state had
suppressed them by using iron hands. In 2009, the tribal people came to the
secretariat in Trivandrum and built hutments and lived there for months till
they were given assurances. As the government retracted from the promise the
people came again in 2014, now with a novel protest; standing and
staring/looking at the people who went about with their normal daily chores.
They made themselves into a spectacle while making the people around them
another ‘moving’ spectacle as well. It was an absolutely novel way of
protesting with the pavement becoming the liminal zone where the identities of
the protestor and the onlooker collapsed, merged and rearticulated in the
mental plane.
(From Stand Still by Ajitkumar G)
Ajitkumar used the same dynamics that he witnessed in the ‘Standing
Strike’. The inspiration for the Standing Strike must have come from Turkey
where a man named Erdem Gunduz stood motionless for six hours to protest against
the government in 2013. Gunduz became a world sensation overnight and became an
icon of a lone man standing and protesting. Perhaps Gunduz also came from the
lone man who stood bravely before the Chinese PLA tanks at Tiananmen Square in
1989 during the pro-democratic protests led by students and youth of China.
Standing up against injustice is both literally and metaphorically strong; when
someone does it the dimensions of it increases. Ajitkumar moved his artistic
project quickly to extend the protest to a gallery and called the project, ‘Stand
Still’. Interestingly he too drew chalk circles for people to stand and stare.
I do not know whether he had remembered the Miltonic invocation that they also
served who stood and stared!
The ‘Stand Still’ project by Ajitkumar was interactive and
participatory in nature. He changed the ambience of the conventional gallery
and brought in deceptive mechanisms that tricked people’s normal viewing
tendencies. With altered light ambience Ajitkumar made the visitors aware that
they were going to witness something phenomenal. After a few painted images the
people were brought in to a chamber of darkness. A white luminous circle told
them to stand still inside it. Then the lights came on them as if they were the
gallery exhibits. They could witness their reflection on the glass wall before
them and could see the signage ‘do not touch’. While wondering what was on the
light on the other side came alive exposing the standing tribal men who stared
at them. Who was looking at who, was the perennial question arose then. Were
the tribal people, who were temporarily brought to stand inside the gallery
without changing their protest-method or attitude, the exhibits or the people
who came to witness the installation/art project, the real exhibits? The
simulation of the pavement dynamics of the protest was mind boggling and even
the then opposition leader, the veteran communist, V.S.Achuthanandan felt that
he was stared at by the victims of Kerala’s skewed land reforms.
(From Stand Still)
In the performative level, Ajitkumar did mean the
abovementioned dynamics to develop within the gallery. But there was a latent
and subterranean idea that he wanted to work into and bring out obliquely
during the process of ‘exhibition’. The idea of standing still has a lot to do
with the idea of very standing itself. As an evolutionary biology enthusiast,
Ajitkumar did mention in the brochure written by himself that he wanted to take
the whole discourse to the beginning of the human species where the homo
species evolved into the Homo Erectus who could, for the first time in the
history of evolution since then, stand erect. Hence, standing is a pivotal
moment. Standing makes the human being and to stand one needs a place, a land.
The tribal people were asking for a piece of land to stand and begin their life
afresh. They were a duped people whose right over the forest land was taken
away by force but ironically, assured in papers. It was a sort of internal colonization
which has been on for a long time.
For me the idea of standing also about the idea of dignity
which is not a palpable stuff. The dignity may be defined differently depending
on the person, his or her status and so on. But dignity is something that gives
a human being a sense of existence. Each moment human beings strive to be
dignified in life. It is not material affluence that makes the life of the
human beings dignified but their right to be what they are. To exercise that
right to be what they are they need the right on resources and equal
opportunity, both unfortunately are denied to these people. Of late, the
Kashmiris are asked to reapply for their lands which they have been dwelling
and owning for generations! This is stripping the people of their dignity and
by standing up, a person could demand the dignity of life. One cannot sit down
and ask for dignified treatment. Rising up for one’s right is important.
Ajitkumar underlines that factor too in his project but reminding the visitors
to stand still within the circumference of thinking provided by the artist and
the people on the other side of the glass and in the pavement.
(Works by Devidas Agase)
Chalk circles have also become a social phenomenon when
Corona virus struck. Social distancing (in fact a misnomer for physical
distancing) was difficult to maintain in a country like India, especially with
a booming population and congested urban spaces. Hence, the governments found
out a way to maintain social distance by drawing chalk circles before the
provision shops, ration shops and wherever there a possibility of people
crowding. It is interesting to notice that the border line is not drawn as a
square but as a circle. May be in the primitive imagination only circles and
lines existed and the human beings later on invented other geometric shapes. So
they use that primitive instinct to limit the movements. Devidas Agase, a
Mumbai based artist picks out those circles from the street and brings them
into his works. He documents the people’s activities in and around the circles
with sympathy and cynicism alike. The multi-limbed figures in his works enact
the normal human activities in and around the chalk circles that have by now
left permanent marks on the pavements and roads each time reminding of the
social distancing phenomenon though very few cares to practice it for their own
sake. Agase do not lampoon them but registers the presence of the chalk circles
in the contemporary history in his hallmark style.
-JohnyML
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