Collecting Baroda: Freedom, Form and the Making of a History

'Freedom to Form - Baroda Modern' at DAG, New Delhi, is an enthusiastic survey show of the 'Baroda School' of art, mainly culled from the vast collection of DAG itself. From N S Bendre to Rekha Rodwittiya and all those artists falling in between, one could see this exhibition not only as a cross-section of the kind of art that Baroda had produced during its formative years through to the maturing years of the 1980s, but also as evidence of the collector's taste, here, in the case of DAG, that of Mr. Ashish Anand.

When it comes to exclusive collections from one particular region, one cannot expect that the collector had meticulously collected the works during the times of their production/creation. A collector and a collection always work from the middle or end and then work in reverse order. He or she must have collected some interesting works in the 1980s, and that gives the prompt and inspiration to collect backwards. Hence, whether the collection be that of DAG or KNMA, one could see the collector's intention to connect the dots rather than to create a linear history. Definitely, armed with money and consultants, a good collector could work in a reverse fashion and comb other collections in order to fill in the blanks. In a sense, we see this 'collectorial' approach in this DAG exhibition.

An acrylic work of N N Rimzon, who had passed out from Baroda during the mid-80s, stands out in its subdued greenish graphic lines that together make three different landscapes with architectural suggestions that had defined the caste-regimented society of Kerala or India. This is comparatively a new work compared to the other works, such as the paintings of Vivan Sundaram from his 'narrative' period, something that he had discarded towards the end of the 80s to start off a journey of conceptual installations.

A silk scroll by the late Mrinalini Mukherjee seems to be a revelation, as she is often identified with her iconic Mother Goddess installations using hemp as the medium. One of the early feminists who chain-smoked her way to an assertive aesthetic, here she is seen at her playful best as she poses herself as a skimpily clad vamp, an innocent village belle whose curves are seen through her wet clothes - a take on the stereotypes of feminine representation. To complement this work, one could see two paintings from the next-generation artist Rekha Rodwittiya, depicting an iconic young woman ready to take on the world, boldly returning the gaze.

G R Santhosh is famous for his Neo-Tantric works, but he definitely had a narrative expressionist phase where he painted perhaps like Husain. There are Shanti Dave's works that we need the labels to identify, as many have not seen those works from those early days of his artistic journey. If you want to revel in eroticism, you just need to look at the works of Laxma Goud, the ace printmaker, sculptor and painter. In his works, the open vulvas and erect penises are abundant, as if the world is doing nothing but fornication. But when thinking of it, one could say that they were young and sex was in the air (perhaps only in the air, and painting it was one way of appeasing the hunger for it), and one couldn't have escaped depicting it.

The much-maligned artist, Latika Katt, seems to be getting her respect due posthumously, as in at least three shows currently in Delhi, her works are being exhibited. In DAG, there are a few paper-pulp casts of Katt, which tell us that she was one who walked ahead of her times. There are portraits and self-portraits of Himmat Shah, and interestingly, one could see a self-portrait in bronze, complete with the miniatures of his own works (abstract heads) flanking the bust. Jyoti Bhatt's prints are now abundant in the art market, but in this exhibition there are a few works that were done during the early days of his career.

This is a worth-visiting show for the historical nuances it carries; however, it has the collector's whims as the organising thread rather than the pursuance of a critical history, as it is internally curated with no acknowledgement of the experts involved in making the show. But this deficiency is compensated through a well-produced volume which has well-researched essays by scholars from different parts of the world. In the case of scholarship, the motto has always been the whiter the better. However, it must bring a whiff of fresh air, as the DAG productions had been literally written single-handedly in the previous years. DAG volumes always have a high production quality, and the price is also sky-high. Perhaps, that is one way of controlling knowledge from going all over and, in the process, getting vulgarised. That is a debatable issue, though.

JohnyML