A Bar for Artists

I was sitting with artist G.R.Iranna in one of the bars at Dubai Airport. Iranna bought one Guinness beer for me and he took a cappuccino. I was profusely borrowing cigarettes from other travel worn passengers like us who were drowning endless hours of waiting in beer. My cigarette packets were in the check-in luggage and whenever I told this to a stranger before asking for a cigarette, they smiled at me and offered their packets asking me to take two or three sticks. A smoker knows the pangs of another smoker who shows the craving for nicotine.

Back on the high stool at the bar, Iranna looked around and said, “This is the kind of place we need in Delhi. A bar with this sort of ambience.” “What about a bar for the artist community in Delhi,” I asked him. “It is exactly the same thing I am also thinking,” Iranna said. The he went on to explain me how he wanted to invest in a Bar and Restaurant exclusively for the artists and art community. I liked the idea because in Delhi we don’t have an exclusive bar for artists. There are bars where artists hang out but they are not reserved for artists. I don’t know whether in any city, there are exclusive bars for artists. However I liked the idea because these days the Bollywood stars, cricket players, fashion world celebrities are investing in bars and restaurants. Why can’t artists do the same? Damien Hirst has a cruise service floating on Thames and ferry people between County Hall and Tate Modern. Possibilities of investment are immense.

I imagine an exclusive bar for artists, may be owned by Iranna or a group of artists. What an idea sirji? If somebody is ready to invest, I have some suggestions. This bar should be a ‘curated’ bar. It should have themes; it should reflect tradition, contemporaenity and varied tastes of the art world. There are artists who still like all what happened in 60s, 70s and 80s. Let us have theme corners for them to chill out with the Beatles music, Bob Dylan’s crooning, Bob Marley’s wailing, and the music of Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Jackson Five, Prince, Freddie Queen, Eric Clapton and so on. Those who want a Jazz and Blues corner let us create it with Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone, Billy Holiday, Diana Rose and so on. For the hardcore Bollywood fans of that time let us have an overdose of Bappi Lahiri in an upholstered section.

I want to create a special section for ‘secular-parallel-arty’ artists who in their secret lives imagine themselves as Shabana Azmis, Smita Patils, Nasarudden Shahs, Kulbhushan Kharbandas, Roshan Seths, Dipti Navals and so on. Pep up this section with occasional dose of Hindustani classical. And there should not be any chairs; only cushions (of Fab India make) on the floor. The cushions should be placed in such a way so that meaningful glances could be exchanged between the guests of opposite genders. The light should be quite arty so that only three fourth of the faces could be seen. There should not be any waiters at this section. Only a table filled with bottles of vodka, gin, run and tonic will do. One of the broken heart guests could double up as a bar man. No bites served in this section. May be a few volumes of Kaifi Azmi, Gulzar and Constitution of India could be kept so that none would realize that there are no munchies.

Contemporary section should be designed by different artists. Bose Krishnmachari can do the main hall and chairs. Talveen Singh would DJ the music. There will be special section for artists from Bihar and this place will be designed by Subodh Gupta with custom made steel and bronze vessels. The Orissa section will be taken care of Jagannath Panda with dislocation as the main theme. Kerala spiritual art section should be designed jointly by Jyothi Basu and Anil Kumar Janardanan with specially made dimly lit corners for talking to foreign ladies who visit the bar. Santhosh TV and Jitish Kallat together would make a ‘grave’ section with bones as predominant theme. Halloween Parties will be celebrated in this section. Baiju Parthan and Ashok Sukumaran could be asked to do the lighting and the lighting should be done in such a way that none could realize that the other is drunk and is not listening to what is told to him. For hardcore feminists there is room of their own designed by Bharti Kher and Viday Kamat. The videos of Nalini Malani and Sonia Khurana will be project on all the four walls of this room. There will not be any music and walls will be sound proofed. There could be a kids corner as many artists and critics have kids. The kids corner will be designed by Shilpa Gupta with her interactive videos.

There is section for gallerists, buyers, collectors, dealers, auction house representatives and museum professionals. CNN-IBN, NDTV Profit television channels will be the theme of this section. No reading materials apart from business newspapers and journals will be available in this section. No hard drink will be served here.

This would be an ideal bar for the artists’ community. Indian art critics will be given two rounds of drinks free of cost. After that if they want they should pay. There will be two sections occasionally on in this bar- the intellectual corner and the alternative corner. In the intellectual corner any work of art will be adequately supported or criticized by citing references from theoreticians. This is a performative section and may be, if they are interested, we can lease it out to Sarai. The alternative corner will be leased out to Khoj International Artists Workshop for 99 years. Wine will be served there in test tubes, round bottomed flasks, funnels etc as it is an experimental corner.

I am waiting for that day when someone like Iranna would start this bar. May be I am thinking of asking Kishu Chauhan of Baroda to take the initiative. Who knows, one day this dream bar will be a reality. In that case, I will ask the management to write off all my bills as I can do some striptease performances on the last Wednesday of every month for free.

New Artists and Their Efforts to Reach Out

Every day I get mails from so many young artists working from different parts of India. I open my gmail inbox with a smile on my face because I see new people connecting with me through their works. I am excited to see their works. They are all trying their level best to stick out in the crowd. Some artists want me to say an opinion about their works. Some people ask me to see their works and see whether I could do something for them. Yet another lot asks me quite boldly whether I am interested to 'curate' their works. I feel so humble when I see all these requests and demands. I can imagine these artists, fresh from their colleges or with some kind of work experience as freelance artists, sitting in their studios, thinking, listening to soft music, speaking to their friends over phones, keeping some books of their liking half read, sipping black coffee or tea, brooding over their uncertain future, melancholically thinking about a show that they had seen a few days back, feeling disgust about the hypocrisy that they confronted in an exhibition opening in the previous evening, thinking about a lover or beloved, checking emails eagerly to see whether some gallery or some 'so-called-imporant' people like me have responded to their mails or not etc. I feel one with them for I too have spent time like that, not as an artist, but as a budding writer, waiting for a call from some newspaper or magazine office.

At times I feel sad as many of these artists are not able to make it in the market and find a decent life out of their art. Some are good and some are bad. This good-bad dichotomy is totally temporal and opinion specific as none can judge an artist's works absolutely. Of course one can talk about the strength of drawing, use of colours, imagination in conjuring up installations, rearranging objects etc. One can talk about the depth of their concepts or the shallowness of it. But everything is based on the opinion created by the market players. I feel sad because many of the market players really do not see most of the works of art created by these people. None cares about their angst and waiting. Today morning a friend of mine, now a famous artist, was talking to me about the Artists Pension Fund. When this artist was struggling none cared about his welfare. But now as he is doing well in the market, these people are asking him to join pension fund. I like the answer that he gave to the pension fund organizers. He told them: My works come out of my insecurity about life. I reassure about my life through looking at my insecurities and negotiating them.My art is all about that. You are asking me to cover up my insecurities including that of economy. What will I do, if I dont have my insecurities? Wouldnt my art be dead then? Wouldnt I cease to be an artist? I dont want to convert my art into finance capital though the market is aggressively doing it. I use money for making art and to understand my insecurities about life. Then he told me, when he was a struggler, he went to one of the gallerists who is now one of the directors of this pension fund scheme, he refused to see his works even. Now as he is successful, the very same gallery has suggested his name for including in pension fund.

The young artists who are sitting and working even in the remote corners of India are not looking for their names to be included in artist pension fund. They just want their works to be seen by people. They need to gain some confidence through appreciation. They just need to feel good about their life through exposing their works to a larger public. Then of course, they all need money. To live a decent life one needs money. An artist's product is a work of art and as he/she is not doing any other job than making works of art, there should be a system that supports these artists in someway. It could be through giving them shows, selling their works, or through giving them adequate funds to live and continue with their works. Our soceity has not woken up to this fact of supporting the struggling artists in someway. It is pertinent now as we have totally imbalanced art market. In this art market, the rich gets richer and the poor remains poor till some angelic touch of a curator or gallerist falls on them. Those artists who have relocated themselves to the cities and art centr have become successful in finding some patrons there. But what about those artists who live and work in the remote areas. I cannot say that they are not serious about their arts and they dont want to come out to struggle in the big cities. They are serious about their art but they have their own reasons to be there in their own locations. As internet has broken down the temporal distance, they think that their works circulated through the blogs, emails and other internet sources would finally give them the required visibility and success. I also think that one day it would help them.

What I think at this junture is to post some of the images of the works of these artists (of course of my liking) on regular basis with a comment from me, or without a comment. Just give a few hints about their works and their location and their email id etc. If someone who is influential and is following my blog could become a patron, you never know. I would like to give it a try.

Bob Marley

(Wo-o-o-o! Wo-o-o-o! Wooo!)
Woman hold her head and cry,
'Cause her son had been shot down in the street and died
From a stray bullet.

Woman hold her head and cry;
Explaining to her was a passerby
Who saw the woman cry (cry)
Wondering how can she work it out,
Now she knows that the wages of sin is death, yeah!
Gift of Jah is life. (life)
She cried: Ah-um, I - I know!
"Johnny was a good man," I - I know! (never did a thing wrong)
"Johnny was a good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good,
good, good, good man", (Johnny was good man)
she cried - she crie-ie-ie-ie-ie-ie-ie-ied!

-Bob Marley