Solitary Companions: A Critique of Naina Dalal’s Paintings

 

 (Naina Dalal)

The title ‘Solitary Companions’ tells it all; the mood of the retrospective of Naina Dalal, curated by Girish Shahane and presented by Splash Art Gallery, Gurugram, at Travancore House, New Delhi, is that of the solitary pursuits. Naina Dalal is that veteran woman artist who stands representative to all those women artists who have been under-represented, under-appreciated, under-rewarded and under-recognized in the male dominated modern Indian art history. The reasons could be many; as the title shows, she has been a solitary traveler and remained in the shadows for a long time not because of her lack of inspiration or drive but because of choice. That choice should be seen as natural and cultural at once. It is natural because familial as well as professional duties take them off from the track of being independent artists. It is cultural because art has been a male bastion for a long time, despite the feminist interventions and related discourses.

 

This sets the stage for the late recognition of many a woman artist in India and elsewhere. With feminism completing its first, second and third waves, with many new waves of it taking it to different inclusionary directions, women artists are now ‘re-cognized’ for their contributions. The late recognition gained by Saroj Gogi Pal, Arpita Singh, Chameli Ramachandran, Madhvi Parekh and so on explain the trajectory of such recognition, besides the market interest in their works. Men or women, the vintage artists are the toast of the market because they have a ‘history’ of existence as a ‘working artist’, their productions are well catalogued, often due to their educated and forward-looking children than the galleries or museums, they have been written about at various stages of their creativity, and finally they have been a part of the male dominated scene as spouses, participants and fellow travelers.

 Naina Dalal’s oeuvre should be seen against these historical markers. Dalal chose her husband, art historian, pedagogue and artist, Prof. Ratan Parimoo, and chose a different approach to art unlike that of her husband, which is more surreal and illustrative. That takes a great effort from the women artist, breaking away from the style, dictum and idiom of their husbands. We have women artists who start differently and end up in their husbands’ style of art. Dalal has trodden a different path, which could be said overtly existential, brooding and addressing an internal other, engaging with her in a constant dialogue. In my view, the title, Solitary Companions is also a communion of these two personal entities, a manifested and a latent one.

 

The Post-(Amrita) Sher-Gil visual aesthetics was not easy for the new crop of women artists who came in 1960s and entered their matured phase in 1970s. While Sher-Gil relatively kept her freedom as an individual away from the political ongoings of the time and was almost at loggerheads with those artists who were nationalistic in the aesthetical approach, her visual production remained free of the political overtones which the later generations of women couldn’t have avoided. However, the public-private divide that functioned as a restrictive binary for an artist like Dalal, even in her mature years goaded to address more of her identity as a woman rather than a woman who has a say in the public domain.

 

Self-mythologizing is a result of such interior addressal and could be seen in the works of the post-Sher-Gil women artists like Saroj Gogi Pal, Dalal and Anupam Sud, which changes considerably by the time of young generation of artists of the 1980s like Nalini Malani, Rekha Rodwittiya, Pushpamala, Najot Altaf and artists of their ilk. Dalal was a witness to the changes that happened in the art scene of Baroda and could function as a silent precursor to the changing (feminist) scenario, yet deviating fundamentally from the art of the men who led the scene and the other two female artists who got early acknowledgement like Nilima Sheikh and Nazreen Mohammadi. Dalal’s self-mythologizing is more poetic than overtly political or sentimental. It is like a poetic soliloquy, a constant search for dialogue with the self/interiority/inner-other. And that other should be seen as more representational than an isolated one. The inner woman stands for all the other women of the time who knew that they were created for a greater purpose but due to socio-cultural and politico-economic reasons rendered bereft of such agency.

 Solitary efforts come either from the awareness that one is all alone in a mission or from the philosophical fact that in life one cannot but be alone. In a time when collective movements were taking shape or in action for facilitating social changes not only in India but all over the world, someone feeling so isolated from all those should be seen carefully. Though the political scenario of the world was in turmoil and in India the making and breaking of the new nationhood was taking place at once, the predominant emotional and intellectual environment had veered towards the existential issues of the human beings. What was the meaning of life and what had made the humans so lonely in the world were the questions that haunted the artists and poets. Romanticism though had given way to stark Realism to take the central stage, for many creative people romantic search for the meaning of life and their loneliness provided solace and artistic trigger. Dalal’s works should be seen in this light.

 

Dalal shares camaraderie with the poets of the time rather than the visual artists it seems. In her works the female protagonist is always seen in relationship with an ‘other’, a nascent male figure or a strong female figure. While the male figure is emblematic of the longing for sexual/emotional companionship, which should function in an ideal plane rather than on a mundane one, the female figure is the ‘true friend’, a confidante. The relationship happens in silence rather than eloquence. Their gestures are fluid and there are no defined actions of an embrace or holding hands. However, in many of her works one could see the image of horse coming repeatedly. Horses, in those years stood as a major trope of the male artist, exemplifying their virility, passion and unbridled hope for progress. However, unlike the male artists’ horses, Dalal’s and Pal’s horses stand for their anchor and vehicle, an implicit desire to self-deification with a devoted mount as a constant companion.

 

Self-deification, the Devi-idea of Indian women, however is not the case here. The Devi-Doormat binary does not seem to be applicable while dealing with the works of Dalal. The deification process is an internal desire to be beyond and transcendental in physical and mental manifestations; the perennial desire to transmogrify and experience a magnified and intense experiential reality, which women of the early feminist phase knew, could only exist in an imaginary plane. Here my attempt is not to posit Dalal as a proto-feminist, as there are no overt feminist ‘waves’ in her works but are definitely open ended for feministic interpretations, but to keep her at par with the poets like Kamala Das, Arun Kolarkar, Nissim Ezekiel and so on, who had written about ‘empty afternoons with feverish thoughts’. This afternoon alertness is diametrically opposite of the idea of Siesta that one sees in the works of Sher-Gil and in the imaginary confinement that frames her protagonists.

 

The feminine alertness is not a natural attribute alone but a culturally acquired trait that is the central mood of Dalal’s works, which have a tricky balminess about them. They are not mean to sooth but to make one think about their existence. The early works, especially the oil paintings done during the 1960s show this alertness in a visible way as the gaze of the protagonists are directed towards the viewers. They are unabashed in their nudity and their counter-gaze is not vacant or submissive. Nor are their eyeballs blackened beyond recognition to suggest the hollow darkness that they are in. The protagonists of Dalal’s paintings direct their counter-gaze at the viewers in alertness. One cannot just fool them, cajole them and coax them into doing what they don’t intend to do.

 

Dalal’s works are informed of the Fauvist- Expressionist verve that the paintings of Paul Gauguin have. If one avoids the exotic gaze of Gauguin and the inviting gaze of the female protagonists that he preferred to paint while in Tahiti, there is some kind of a dignity and strength that he attributes to those women. They are not just partners of his sexual fantasy; instead, they show the freedom of women in that society. They lie on their back, on their stomach, lean against trees, wear colorful summer clothes, they display their ‘fruits’ and they sport a deceptive smile on their lips. They obviously would have inspired Naina Dalal, the way they had inspired Amrita Sher-Gil and T.K.Padmini, two women artists who painted the interiority of women’s mind. While looking at the works of Dalal, I could connect a lot with the works of T.K.Padmini though Dalal might not have seen her works during her formative years as an artist. However, I do not understand why the curator tried to tie Dalal’s works in the traditional Rasas of Indian aesthetics, which I thought was a very poor thought of an otherwise sensible curator.

 

JohnyML

DELHI COLLAGE OF ART: An Art Carnival that could Grow into An Art Fair

 

(Ashwani Kumar Prithviwasi: The Founder Director of Delhi Collage of Art. It is a portrait painted by Piyush Aswal, a first year student at the DCA)

Delhi Collage of Art. The misspelling is conspicuous. Auto-correct soon changes it into ‘College’. You force it back to ‘Collage’. In 2011, I had curated a show at Gallery Ragini, New Delhi with a ‘wrong’ title; A4 Arple. Auto-correct made it ‘Apple’ again, and again. I changed it back into ‘Arple’. My argument was simple; A4 size, which was created for the manual typewriter, later got adopted into the computer parlance, became a standard format not only for the paper but for the writing itself. Such perpetuation of technological jargons is often accepted without questioning. If there is a wrong spelling, our brains auto-correct it. Through the project, I was expecting the viewers to make visual corrections, if there were any, while looking at the works of art.

 

When Delhi Collage of Art was started by Ashwani Kumar Prithviwasi, a young artist in his early thirties at that time, people noticed two things; the spelling ‘mistake’ in the name of his institution and his unusual surname. Later Ashwani revealed that his choices were deliberate. He wanted to start an institution that helped young talents to become professional artists. The name of the institution was to be Delhi College of Art with the right spelling. But he knew he cannot use the name of another institution which was also in the same city. Delhi College of Art is a public sector art institution from where Ashwani himself had graduated. The tribute that he had in mind for his alma mater was ridden with legalities. So, he settled for ‘Collage’ and as the word suggested the institution catered to a variety of people from different social layers, genders and ages. Today, it is a successful institution that gives diplomas and advanced diplomas, officially recognized by international art establishments.

 

(Shridhar Iyer at the DCA Carnival Platform with Ashwani)

Ashwani’s surname too evokes curiosity. Prithviwasi means an earthling. Every being on this earth has equal rights, Ashwani believes. He thinks that he shouldn’t be vain by his religion, caste or social status. Transcending himself beyond all kinds of limitations, a positive thinker and an intelligent entrepreneur, Ashwani started preparing students for gaining admission in the fine art colleges. Soon he could gain acceptance both as a humanist and art educator. Today, students join Delhi Collage of Art not just to prepare themselves for art colleges but to become fulltime art professionals armed with diplomas obtained from Delhi Collage of Art. Ashwani says that in the first year he focuses on skill development and in the following years he lets the students to pursue creating art in the traditional mediums as well as using unconventional and cutting-edge mediums and materials.

 

The success story of Delhi Collage of Art is now indisputably etched in the minds of Delhi’s art people. Every year Ashwani conducts an Art Carnival, a sort of annual exhibition of the Delhi Collage of Art Students. In 2024, he has expanded the scope of this annual carnival by sending open invitations to the established artists in Delhi and elsewhere. The recently concluded DAC Art Carnival saw the participation of DAC students, diploma holders, professional artists and international invitees. The carnival presented a medley of visual practices that expressed the ideas, ideologies, affinities, skillsets and directions of the participants. An overemphasis on naturalistic skills seems to be ‘a thing’ that gives the carnival a predominantly amateurish look. In the naturalistic visual din, the works of the professional artists seemed to have lost their aesthetics and purpose. It calls for two things; one, inclusion of art history in the syllabus of the Delhi Collage of Art. Two, a curatorial intervention in the whole setting up of the show.

 

(Annual fest of Delhi Collage of Art in January 2024)

The salon type display, a sort of visual cacophony, seen from a different perspective looked attractive on the walls of the Lalit Kala Akademi Galleries. Conventionalists among the art lovers may not have liked the jumble of visuals. But getting the viewers overwhelmed by the ‘DAC Aesthetics’ could be one of the aims of the organizers. If so, they have not failed in their attempt. The carnival atmosphere that Ashwani and team had created supplemented the display of art. He also opened the platforms for intellectuals, art critics, poets, designers, educators and professionals from different fields to make formal presentations before an enthusiastic audience. During my presentation on Delhi’s art criticism scene from 1990s to now, upon my suggestion, Ashwani expressed his willingness to create a database of India’s art historians, critics and curators, as an open source for the benefit of the art professionals.

 

Delhi Collage of Art, through its carnival platform has proven its capacity to grow further and become an art fair of a different kind. What the government run agencies have failed to do could be materialized by the efficient team work led by Ashwani. One could only wish him all the best.

White Cube Versus Colorful Walls: Galleries and Changing Visual Experiences

 

(Image courtesy: Net)

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’.

 

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.

 

(Image courtesy: Net)

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.

 

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.

 

(Image courtesy: Net)

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.

 

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.

 

(Image courtesy: Net)

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.

 

-JohnyML