A Young Magician in Printmaking: Meet Rama Chandra Majhi

Printmaker Artist Rama Chandra Majhi

“I like Haren Das,” says Rama Chandra Majhi, a twenty one year old graduate in Print Making from the Government College of Art and Crafts, Khallikote, Ganjam District, Odisha. Looking at Majhi’s works, especially the woodcuts one could understand why he likes Haren Das so much. Haren Das (1921-1993) was a master printmaker who proved that one could be an excellent story teller, documenter, visual chronicler and a fine artist and the medium was never a limitation. The fineness of his lines surpasses the expressionism that Chittoprasad Bhattacharya, one of his early contemporaries had brought to his works. Haren and Chittoprasad worked in two different lines and employed their creative prowess for different purposes. Haren Das was a Romantic and Chittoprasad Bhattacharya was a Realist. Haren Das did not want to change the surroundings that he thought were beautiful, serene and slow moving despite all the tribulations such a rural place would have. Chittoprasad wanted his surroundings to change and the existing oppressive system to collapse. He believed that art had the power to move people. Rama Chandra Majhi confesses his liking for Haren Das and his works don’t betray this confession. Besides, Majhi adds that he has not yet begun brining ‘politics’ into his art. “But I am aware of the fact that art cannot live without it (politics).” 

Work by Rama Chandra Majhi

Born to a family in Mayurbanj District of Odisha, disadvantaged in many ways that includes the remoteness from the city life, hard labour in farms and lack of proper educational facilities, Rama Chandra Majhi has fought odds to gain his degree from the Government College in Khallikote. His woodcuts are huge in size (123x 235 cms) and the size reflects the size of the wood surface that he uses for making his works. The industrially made plywood planks are available in the said size and that has become a fascinating size for many of the young printmakers who would like to go for daring experiments. If I am not wrong, the early indications of using plywood for making woodcut prints were seen in the printmaking department in Hyderabad, which later found its full blooming in the Printmaking department at the Fine Arts Faculty, Baroda. Out of the box thinking had led many young artists to experiment with these plywood planks, an unusual and ambitious surface for an art practice that had found its satisfaction in smaller size wood blocks that could be worked on and from a table top. Pratap Modi is an artist who found early success in large scale woodcut only to be followed by many in the Baroda school. Among the women artists, Sohra Khurasani has adopted plywood as her working surface so that she could produce ambitious woodcut installations predominantly red in colour, which has become her hallmark style by now.  

Work by Rama Chandra Majhi

One could imagine the artists working on plywood surfaces going all down on fours like careful animals armed with a spoon and pressing the paper down on the wooden surface and taking the impressions carefully. Those people who are familiar with the traditional woodcuts are in for a shock here because the new technique has allowed them to come up with multicoloured prints thought it demands patience, perseverance and tremendous skill. If someone is creating a large scale be sure that the artist behind the work is a highly skilful person, knows the spatial dimensions well and also knows the impact of the final work on the viewers once the final impression is done. Rama Chandra Majhi comes to us as a highly accomplished artist and it is difficult to believe that this artist is just a graduate. Majhi has not yet hit the art market and he may take more time to do so for the simple reason that these days, due to the lack of an active art market the gallerists are not really looking for potential artists. If at all they are looking they are looking those sophisticated artists who make nonsense inanities and hang them from the ceilings and add a lot of autobiography to it. Majhi’s works too have the artist’s autobiography in them but one could test it, taste it and even love it. Hence, it may take time but I am sure if not today, tomorrow the market cannot overlook the artistic contributions of Majhi. 

Work by Rama Chandra Majhi

Now let’s take a look at the works of Majhi. He works both in woodcut and large scale watercolours. At present, as he is so tuned to the vertical size of the plywood boards, even his watercolours take shape in the same format; vertical. He could go for horizontal articulations, but Majhi finds it comfortable to stick to the vertical format. This verticality has given him a different stylistic advantage. First of all, instead of spreading over a large panoramic space, he could stick to a focused space, like a piece before the vision sliced up and placed for scrutiny. At the same time, it allows him a sort of virtuosity to develop a narrative the way the Mughal miniaturists had approached their sceneries. We see some sort of a crowded space in Majhi’s works and there are several areas where contours of the images and figures overlap. But take a careful look at them one would find that one image does not dismiss the other on the contrary it comes as a layer that supplements or complements the previous image or layer. Majhi has a very special tendency to present the flora and fauna of a place, that place is nothing other than the place in and around his village, and make them look very beautiful. The complicated arrangement of the flora at once functions as a border of the prints and also as a mode of embellishment. However, for Majhi they are the integral parts of the work that set the mood and backdrop of the ‘events’ that take place in his works. And if anyone of you have noticed that there is something quite Henry Rousseasque about his works, then yes, Majhi gleefully admits that he loves the works of Rousseau. 

Work by Rama Chandra Majhi

As mentioned elsewhere in this essay and as asserted by Majhi himself, his works are ‘not political’. But it is up to us whether we should see politics in his works or not. May be we could go by his words and say that there is no politics in these works and they are very beautiful one. True, one should not always look for political issues in someone’s works. But what one should do when the works subconsciously gives away the hidden intentions or the very subconscious of the artist himself. So here we look at a work where we see a herd of cattle, mainly of cows, is led by a few cowherds. And they are walking forward and one could even think of the Godhuli time, the beautiful twilight time, as in some of the works of Nandlal Bose, Binod Behari Mukherjee, Gobardhan Ash and so on. But something is different elsewhere in the painting. There is an absolutely unsettling act on one side of the painting. There you see a group of people beating or taming a defiant bull/cow. What exactly is that? Ask Majhi, he would say that in the village he often sees such scenes. There are very obedient animals and unruly ones. Some need taking. So there is nothing exceptional about it. But considering the present political scenario in the country where cow is a scared animal and the killing or hurting of it could get you killed (and even yesterday something of that sort has happened in Madhya Pradesh). This may be a subconscious expression of the artist or it could be absolutely a normal scene. But an onlooker cannot overlook the implications that it brings forth. I am reminded of a side show within a painting of Bhupen Khakar where two angels try to kill or dominate each other.  

Work by Rama Chandra Majhi

In one of the woodcuts, we could see a forest space interspersed with a village space and young men with their bodies tattooed to the wrist making a sort of circular movement. What intrigues us is that presence of a woman inside a basket and apparently is being carried on the shoulder by a young man. Is she being abducted or is it a rural ritual? Majhi has an answer about it. They are the present youth who are devoid of any respect of the elders. But at least one of the many still has it for his parents like the mythical character, Shravana Kumar. He also says that though there is a practice of boys tattooing their bodies in the village, it is not customary that they should cover their bodies with pictures. Majhi does it out of his will to embellish the painterly feel. In another work, one could see a host of sheep, as it is normal in the case of Majhi’s works walking towards us and one of the goats in the forefront has a magically transformed face; the face of the goat is now transformed to that of a young woman who has a pair of goggles, ear rings and lipstick on her lips. Majhi may refuse to say that he has done it with a message or commentary for he wants to keep his works ideologically neutral. However, we cannot avoid seeing the obvious; a young woman becoming a scapegoat or getting fattened to be slaughtered on the altar of marriage or other social demands.  

Work by Rama Chandra Majhi

There is another interesting work that Majhi connects directly to a series of accidents that have occurred near his village. A new road is created in his village to ease the traffic. First of all there was no such busy traffic to ease. But something else was happening on the other end of the village. Big business was coming and they needed big road. So a new road came and accidents became a normal sight. Majhi says that he has witness several car accidents in that road. So here is a work where he has captured his pain and the irony that he has felt about the whole thing; a door is opened and what you see is a series of cars tumbling down into the dark recesses like toy cars. Majhi laments the loss of human lives and happiness. He says that it is what development brings to us. But he does not want to critique it directly. He says that at present his intention is to capture whatever seems attractive to him. And he wants to make his works attractive. And true to his intentions, Majhi’s works are attractive. (When he talks about roads, accidents and developments, I think of Manjhi, Dasrath Manjhi, who is also known as the Mountain Man, who had created a road through a hill in Bihar using only a hammer and chisel just to connect his village to the city so that the villagers could avail medical facilities faster than otherwise they could by circumventing the hill. He took twenty two years of his life to bring about that ‘development’).

Work by Rama Chandra Majhi

How does Rama Chandra Majhi develop the images for his works? For Majhi, his village is the repository of a huge number of images. He says that he uses his mobile phone to register the images that he likes as he moves around in the village. Later on, in his college studio, he makes the initial sketches on paper by picking and choosing images from his photo gallery. He does not use them as they are but make creative alterations to fit to his woodcut works. Then he does the lay out on the plywood before going for the carving. It is a painstaking process and he makes at least five impressions in every work. His young teacher, Trinath Mohanty says that Majhi is a highly talented and devoted student and a look at his works proves that Mohanty is not wrong in his assessment. Majhi likes to do a post graduation in Printmaking and yes, from Baroda. He has given the applications and is waiting for their call. He loves the works of Laxma Gowd and A.Ramachandran. And what does he want to learn from Baroda? Perfection and more perfection. And what is Majhi going to do with more perfection which he already has? “I am going to work more and find out new expressions in printmaking. Baroda is a place that I am dreaming of,” says Majhi. Baroda, listen, ain’t you still accepting talents? 

Art of Experiencing: Introducing the Art of VB Harilal Krishnan

(VB Harilal Krishnan)

Art is a result of experiences. What an artist creates is nothing but the aggregate of his experiences distilled, reformed, re-formed and put into a form which is neither the experience in itself nor is it far away from the experience that has caused the work of art. Artist hence becomes a transitory station from where the experiences could take certain directions or even languish there forever without ever finding a destination therefore permanently denied a journey. Artist does intend to convey his distilled as well as raw experiences but his expressions need not necessarily be containing a message capable enough to move the ones who come to encounter those expressions. While an artist does not stand directly responsible for his expressions, his works of art, as separated from the artist, finding themselves in a different space and time stand responsible thanks to their evocative powers. By the time the viewers are moved by such distilled experiences (works of art), the artist must have moved further from those experiences and have accepted them as memory traces constantly generating a remote yet decisive framework for receiving as well as expressing different/newer experiences. However, till he finds the courage and space to move out of them, he finds it difficult to overlook those experiences and the metaphors and images caused by them.

The above said factors explain why an artist keeps repeating certain images and metaphors in his works or rather why he uses a certain colour or mood in order to build up his works. For example, Picasso was obsessed with the colour Blue and later Pink/Rose in his formative years. He also chose the themes pertaining to the fallen/failed/depressed people like clowns, prostitutes, old musicians and so on. Pink period reflected his optimism before his actual success as an artist. Once Picasso had grown into maturity and facing middle age crisis, his works started getting populated with the erotically powerful mythical creatures like minotaurs and satyrs. Perhaps, he was too afraid of facing the possibility of losing his virility both as an artist and a person. A potential artist outgrows his images and metaphors according to the different ways in which he receives the experiences, absorbs them, distils them and then refines or re-forms them. Failed artists are the ones who repeat the images and metaphors not because they are unable to outgrow their early experiences but because they are afraid of moving away from the set repertoire of images and metaphors for the fear of social rejection. The latter set of artists may be financially successful in their careers but it would be too difficult for them to outgrow their own times because they never let their works of art to grow on their own in time. That means, such artists control the meanings of their works and fix them in time, blocking the possible avenues of interpretations when the works meet their viewers in a different time and space.

(A work by Harilal. detial)

However, during the formative years an artist’s insistence on using certain set of image repertoire should be seen with sympathy and care. That’s why I started taking interest in the young artist V.B.Harilal, an artist from Kerala, who currently lives and works in Delhi. This artist in his mid 20s has a graduation in painting from the famous Mavelikkara Fine Arts College, Kerala. Harilal’s works are infested with the images of houses; the fundamental architectural image that is geometrically constituted by the combination of a square and a triangle. These two simple forms sometimes have further geometrical sections inside them imparting a sense of windows and doors. At times, as onlookers we feel that these ‘home-forms’ metastasise in his canvases and also in his drawings done on paper. Harilal likes blacks and greys; exactly the way Picasso had liked Blue and Pink. Familiar with the blue sky of Madrid and the pinks of women’s clothes and architecture, Picasso had all the reasons to let those colours to stain his imaginations. Harilal, despite his upbringing in the green and lush Kerala, due to the adverse living conditions developed a liking for whatever is black. He does not say that it is a colour of pessimism but he underlines the fact that is an excluded colour. He likes when I say that white surface of his canvases and papers exclude the black lines that he draws there. But the lines fight back powerfully to belong there and in the process look more prominent, almost relegating the white into the background.

Why homes? I have asked Harilal, the artist whom I call ‘Hari’ in all fondness. After hearing out his words, I have never had a second question on those homes. Have you ever experienced such a devastating occurrence in your life, as in, you are a primary school student and one day you come back from school to the place your ‘home’ once stood and you find that the home is no longer there? Sometimes you come back to your home and you see your parents have bundled up all their worldly possessions and waiting to move to a different place. Hari has experienced it ‘eighteen’ times in his life so far. For him ‘home’ is a ‘moveable’ entity; there surety in it. Why they have to move home all the times? Perhaps, the colour black would explain. Disadvantaged by caste and further disadvantaged by Kerala’s unuttered yet subtly articulated socio-economic discrimination, Hari and his parents have been moving from one place to another, looking for work, social security and happiness. I do not know whether there are still readers out there waiting for me to explain why Hari uses the images and metaphors of homes and he predominantly uses the black colour. But what makes me say good things about his works is their ability to make the viewer go into the core of his works even if he is not present in them. They are not just patterns meant to create rhythm and beauty; but you do feel rhythm and beauty in those repetitive images but you don’t just stop at it. You would go further and find out why Hari uses house images in his works because finally you would understand that he is still looking for his ‘home’, his hearth, his stability and happiness.

(work by Harilal)

When I look at Hari, I see a Basquiat just coming out of his cardboard box laid on the pavement as a temporary home and walking towards Andy Warhol who is seen sitting at a window table in a restaurant across the small street. Basquiat swaggers in and shows his small works to Andy Warhol and says that ‘I am Basquit and you may buy my works’. Such a confidence and I am impressed when I see him in Julian Schnabel’s biopic on the late young black rebel, Jean Michel Basquait. Perhaps, Hari does not exude that confidence but I can always see him walking out of a cardboard box to light, to the famous with lot of confidence. Why, because he has works with him and is ready to work forever. Like the Black radicals who have later become internationally known creative people, Hari too has a life rich in experiences. He did not know he was heckled by some senior students while college because he was Black. He thought it was his timidity that allowed them some space to enter and heckle him. Hari is a black belt in Kung-Fu. He could have thrashed them up. But the Zen of Kung-Fu has helped him channelize his anger to his works of art. Had he chosen to fight back in college, he knew he would have been landed in jail because jails are always for the blacks. In Kerala, we call blacks as Dalits. In India too. Hari chose to live in the free world and paint houses.

Let me tell you, when I just said, ‘paint houses’ it was not metaphorical at all. Hari painted houses, the real houses to eke out a living. Even when he was a student in the college, Hari did the job of a house painter, a help in the construction sites and many other jobs. To fund his post graduation Hari did work in a quarry where his ‘assignment’ was to carry large granite pieces to load the waiting trucks. So Hari’s works have the black of the granite stones too. Hari’s works have the black of skins burnt by the sharp sunlight. Still the yellows bordering those blacks in Hari’s paintings give us the Chaplinesque hope that he would make it finally because there is a tomorrow always. It’s not a sob story and Hari would hate to base his works in the shallow water of tears but in the rock strong foundation of his determination. Even today, people ask him why couldn’t he give public service commission tests and become a policeman or a peon. That’s the story of the blacks in India. None would ask him why shouldn’t he become a Husain or a Picasso. But it has been predetermined that a black in India could maximum become a policeman or a peon. A policeman always goes to the black ghettos on behalf of the state and catches his sleeping brothers and thrashes them up for the wrongs that perhaps they have never committed. The society also thinks that if there is a theft in the locality the culprits would definitely be from the black ghettos. Hari just wouldn’t like to be one for he is born to be an artist.

(work by Harilal)

Hari’s works are not just about homes; homes that fly, dream, swim, float and run. Hari also paints woods. He paints forests with thick and tall trees with a intertwining branches and foliages. And he always shows us a path that goes into the depths of the forests where all the secrets of life are kept hidden. When you look at those paths, you remember the poem of Robert Frost, ‘Road Not Taken’. Hari does not have time to sleep, perhaps he even doesn’t have time to stand and stare at the beauties offered by the forest. He wants to go miles before he could really sleep. Hari also gives the feeling of the images evoked by the Nigerian writer Ben Okri. While standing before the works of Hari we would feel that his forests are filled with magical creatures. He is full of compassion for the creatures around him; whether it be fellow human beings, dogs or cats. That’s why even if we don’t see human beings in his paintings (as they are around him a lot) we see cats, dogs and birds in his works. But to see them we need to train our eyes very hard because like in a puzzle they stay interspersed with the images of homes, burden supports and urine cans.

Those who do not have the experiences of a pre-globalized India and then too an India of 1950s and 60s, may find it difficult to understand what I mean by ‘burden supporters’. I do not know whether it has an actual English word because it comes from a Malayalam word, Chumadu Thangi. Chumadu means a heavy load/a burden metaphorically, and Thangi means a support/or a platform where one could keep the weight for some time. This is a granite stone structure reminding one of the Stonehenge. This is a horizontal stone slab propped up on two vertical rock pillars driven into the earth. Wayfarers carrying heavy loads keep their burden on it (as it is shoulder height one could transfer the head load on to it easily) and take rest under it till they are ready to proceed further. Human beings who take the burden of the family always evoke this metaphor, sometimes calling themselves as Chumadu Thangi or saying that they don’t have one to share the burden. Hari has brought this structure into his works, in the beginning as a realistic one and of late as a metaphorical one pushing it to its graphical minimalism. Hari sees the structure as the bend form of a human beings and he remembers each human being around him who have just made their lives into these forms in order to support their disadvantaged families. The urine can comes from a personal experience as his beloved grandfather incapacitated by illness had to use this ‘can’ for his ablutions. Slowly in Hari’s works, these cans appear as birds, a sort of headless swans flying around. Hari also paints the images of plantain orchards but in a stylized fashion where their leaves also contain the images of homes; at times remembering how the landlord broke all those leaves only because he didn’t want Hari and brother use these leaves for packing their humble noon meal.

(another work in progress by Harilal)

One may think that I am trying to create the image of an artist based on his sad story. But Hari’s is not a sad story; what I seen in him is a bold young man who is determined to rough it out in the big bad world and never say die. That is the spirit of a young black man today. Today nobody speaks of Picasso’s poverty or struggle. The blue and pink periods have become art historical categories. Hari’s story as it is too close in our times has not yet become an art historical category devoid of its painful under and overtones. But distanced in time and space, with his success as an artist in future, I am sure the sob stories (if anyone feels about them so now) of Hari would turn into art historical points.  Hari has a lot of potential to be one of the best artists in India. Hari’s experiences are so strong to be shaken off. They would mature and season in him. The metaphors of today would transform and take many incarnations in his canvases. He would be creating the art of the black and they together would be telling the story of the blacks in India of a time when we all sleep tight thinking that everything is alright around us when it is not the case.

(I couldn't source the right pictures for this essay. I will be uploading new pictures soon)

Reading a Contemporary Painting: Case Study- Jyothiraj Mayappilly

(Painting by Jyothiraj Mayappilly)

A work of art functions in the minds of the viewers as certain points of evocation, mainly of familiarity as well as curiosity. If one of these evocations doesn’t take place in the minds of the spectators, a work of art remains as a mere object before their eyes. An object raises its value as an aesthetic object through its ability to find resonances in the minds of the people who come to encounter it. A work of art also could be ‘enjoyed’ for its sheer ‘advertised value’ which in turn evokes familiarity. For example, a majority of the people who talk volumes about the masterpiece, ‘Potato Eaters’ by Vincent Van Gogh hardly have seen its original. However, the moment a similar image is presented through other mediums, thanks to the sheer ‘advertised value’ of it they start ‘admiring’ it. Even if a work of art doesn’t have any cultural affiliations with the viewer therefore cannot expect the evocation of ‘familiarity’ in him, still he could ‘enjoy’ it if it could evoke some sort of curiosity about it. To cite an example, I would take the most celebrated work of art by Picasso titled ‘Guernica’ instantly generates a curiosity about it among the viewers because the disparate images or rather (a carefully dispersed heap of) broken images evoke a sort of curiosity that from there takes the viewers to the familiar ‘war images’ that they have witnessed in their literature or contemporary events. Evocation of familiar feelings or knowledge is possible in the case of a work of art depending on the literature that has been built around it. That’s why we often say that art history and related critical literature are important for the proliferation of the ‘image’ of a work of art along with its intended meanings which in turn would give rise to many more interpretations in different cultural scenes.

I would like to ‘read’ a work of art done by a Kerala based artist Jyothiraj Mayapillly against the back drop. I came across this image in the Facebook and I was amused to see it. Even if I have not seen the original work (the way I have not seen the originals of many works of art in the history despite the fact that I deal with them in my writings as referential points and as cultural examples), thanks to the familiarity of the theme and the simplicity with which the images are rendered (or rather the whole painting is ‘built’) I find this work worth interpreting. This work has a family in it. Because there is a ‘family’ in it, even if it is not a family that could be seen all over the world, anybody from any part of the world could ‘understand’ this painting. This in a way ‘reassures’ the belief of the human beings that they build in and around the ‘society’. As the basis of a society is determined and conditioned as a ‘family unit’ anywhere in the world ‘family’ is concept that is revered even if that family is mired in disputes, disagreements, torturing and hatred. Family soothes one exactly the way a man lost his way in the desert is comforted by the sight of a mirage. One knows that it is a mirage yet he finds it so attractive and compelling therefore worth striving. In Jyothiraj’s painting,  as we see a family, ‘a happy family’ without any past or future discord visible, we are reassured the way when we see a painting of the Holy Family of Jesus Christ, Santhal Family by Ram Kinkar Baij and so on.

(Santal Family by Ram Kinkar Baij)

Interestingly, this family is not a typical Kerala family; I would say, this family is a family conjured up by the artist himself. This family could exist in the imagination of the artist. Let me explain why; the landscape against which the family is depicted is not a real landscape but an emblematic one. That is the case of most of the works of art. A work of art brings to the painting what is necessary in a painting; it could be done by way of editing out what is available and present in the actual landscape and also by picking and choosing certain elements from the given landscape that would make the setting look complete in itself. Except those artists who are staunch landscape painters who travel around the places and make paintings directly from the ‘nature’, artists who create landscapes sitting in studios imagine a landscape or base their landscapes in an existing photograph or picture and then make sufficient alterations therefore the work of art looks ‘nothing more nothing less but just enough’. In Jyothiraj’s untitled work we see this ‘just enough’ landscape as the family on the move is flanked by a palm tree (obviously a coconut tree as the setting is in Kerala) and a plantain tree with a banana bunch hanging from it. Barring these two trees and a few saplings down the plantain tree, only a green patch suggests that the landscape is lush and green.

                                                                         

This family doesn’t exist because it cannot exist. But it could exist in the imagination of the artist and it could grow into the minds of the others who view it. This family is an unreal tableau because we do not know their whereabouts. When we do not know someone and we encounter them quite unexpectedly they may look quite magical. So I would say here is a magical family and I would also say that the magic is because there is nothing real in it and it merely an illusion. Look at the moon that has risen far in the sky. Scientifically speaking the ‘side’ that we see in this painting should have been in the ‘dark’ as the light source is behind the images. But these ‘people’ in the painting are illuminated by a frontal light as we see them in full light. Now look at their shadows. Considering the shadows, we could deduce that the light source that illuminates the painting comes from thirty to forty five degree angle from the left side of the painting. A moonlit night cannot have two moons at once in the sky. So the artist actually sets up these people in this emblematic landscape. It does not come as an artistic fallacy but in magical realism the artist does not stick to events that could scientifically therefore logically proved.

(work by Jyothiraj Mayappilly)

Here is a family unit that is coming back from a village fair after buying whatever they have found interesting there. They look content and they do not need to go back and cook food at home. So their pace is leisurely. The children are caught up with the toys that they have just bought from the fair. Under the moon and against the romantic setting, the husband and wife exchange glances while engaged in an animated talk. What intrigues me is the dhoti that the man is wearing. This style of dhoti has never been the fashion or habit of the Kerala men at any point of time. The men from upper castes (especially the Brahmins who did the temple related activities) wore such kind of dhoti. But the complexion of the man or that of any member of the family gives a hint to think that they could be from upper caste. Besides, the man is not wearing a sacred thread across his body. From the clothes of the woman what I understand is that they belong to the lower middle class or the peasant caste. All of them are barefoot and the man does not wear a shirt. From the clothes of the children too I understand that they wear such clothes only on rare occasions. Here, they had gone to a village fair and they are on their way back. They had set out for the fair in the morning itself and they had anticipated intense heat or heavy rain as the man has an umbrella hanging from his right shoulder. Definitely they are not coming from a temple because they do not wear any sandal paste mark on their foreheads. This leads to another reading. Are they Christians therefore devoid of religious marks on their bodies? But a Christian is supposed to go to a church wearing his best clothes that includes a shirt. Generally Christians do not go to the church bare bodied.

(Mahatma Ayyankali)

Now I am going to make a sort of sociological reading of Jyothiraj’s painting. As they are wearing very clean clothes (white) and they do not carry any religious mark on them, they must be from a Dalit family that is involved in agriculture. The toys in the hands of the children show that they belong to the contemporary times. Though the whole setting could make us misread it as a scene from 1940s or 50s or even before that, the presence of the toys gives us a clue to understand it as a contemporary scene. Five decades back you could never have bought such toys from a village fair. This family is emblematic of an ‘awakened’ Dalit family in Kerala. The Dalit social reformers of the late 19^th century and the early 20^th century had insisted that all the Dalits should get educated and they should gain wealth through setting up business. Leaders like Ayyankali strived quite hard for spreading education among the Dalits, even if he was absolutely illiterate. He also insisted that Dalit should wear clean clothes because untouchability came from the idea of ‘cleanliness’ of the physical body (as Atman was neither clean nor dirty!). Till early 20^th century the Dalits were not allowed to wear clean clothes (even if they bought fresh clothes they had to smear it with mud and dirt before wearing it in public). In the painting we see the family has bought educational equipments for the children. That means they are ready to take any pain to educate their children. The happiness on the children’s face show that they are contented and are very hopeful about the education that they are going to get. They are futuristic as they are playing with a helicopter and a robot. Interestingly, the artist has not pushed a ‘doll’ into the hands of the girl. She is also going to grow up into a mechanical engineer, come whatever may.

(Lord Shiva and Family- Kalighat Painting)

Jyothiraj Mayapilly is very romantic in this painting. I have noticed this romanticism in other paintings also. This romanticism happens mainly during the times when the strong hold of the mediatic realism and hyper realism wanes. Starkly realistic paintings had killed the possibilities of imagination. Maximum what the mediatic realist artists could do was creating a sort of surrealism in their works. Romanticism has the possibility of creating magical realism for it runs parallel with realism and also at times collapses the dryness of realism. As an art genre Realism had tried to depict what the mainstream art had avoided in those days (latter half of the 19^th century) but that realism had also resisted the possibilities of turning them into magical realist works. Jyothiraj’s work is romantic as he looks inwards to device a time and space but there he creates a sort of realism which is quite magical. When I look at this work again I am reminded of one of the famous Kalighat paintings where we find the family of lord Shiva coming back from a village fair. 

How Can I Become a Political Artist?: Answering that Million Dollar Question

(Work by Riyas Komu. Pic courtesy Vadehra Gallery)

After reading my article on political art in India, a few artists came forward to ask me this question: How does one do political art? Though the wordings are not exactly the same in those questions differently put to me, they all wanted to know how one could really do political art. This question stems from the basic understanding that they are not doing ‘political’ art or whatever they create are not ‘political enough’. They look around and wonder why some artists are hailed as political artists and some are not. They are further confused when they see the kind of market success that these political artists gain despite their ‘strong political social critique’. They wonder why despite their concerted efforts in raising voice against the social discriminations, growing fascist tendencies and religious bigotry in this country, through varied visual means, they are not considered as political artists and never favoured by the market. True, there is an interesting irony in this matter, perhaps I have to replace the word ‘irony’ with ‘hypocrisy’.

The clearest of reasons that I can find out for such disparate treatment of the artists and their art by the market and the so called critical community is largely depended on the sophistication of the artist as a person and the work of art produced by him or her. Twentieth Century art history had created a picture about the artist as an uncouth, plain talking bohemian with a lot of wild sexual drive or madness. Even if they were politically inclined and at times were part of a large political party, somehow they were exempted from being loyal to the prescribed ideologies. Artists therefore come to have seen as people who could live their lives in their own terms, go mad, fall in and out of love, abuse women and children, criticise politics as well as the polite society but still be the darlings of the rich and powerful class. This happened mainly because artists were treated as an exclusive tribe that performed things that the gentile and polite society couldn’t have taken much pains to perform. But the polite society members and the rich and powerful patronizing class wanted the products created by these Bohemians for they considered them as the creators of culture and possessing their works of art was the easiest way to partake in the cultural process of a country and belong to the ‘cultural heritage’ of the land and also to be a part of the ongoing cultural discourse. Though the acceptance of such Bohemian acts had taken much time and deliberations, the artists were always treated as a class apart.

(work by Savi Savarkar)

This framework through which art history had been presenting the artists and their works of art throughout the twentieth century has now been considerably altered, unfortunately our general and the academic societies refuse to accept this shift. Hence our artists who come out of the academies or those artists who come in the art scene via some other routes thinking of making their name and fame in the existing market still carry forward the old ‘image’ of the artist who is a Bohemian, a rebel, uncouth and plain speaking. Their art also show such ‘material’ and ‘medium’ based rigour and vigour at times taking the works of art to the level of abstraction. They somehow fail to see that the artists’ image has undergone a sea change mainly because of the economic changes that happened in the cultural market world over, the free flow of capital across the borders, the homogeneity inculcated in the cultural products deliberately by the market players in order to create a more or less unified market where same value works could be transacted without thinking much about the provincial financial value denominations.

Such a scenario also changed the art historical perspective regarding the presentation of the artists and their works. First of all a corporate driven market, which is a global market always uses a language which is common to all players in the global market. This language finds its manifestations in different levels; it starts with the dress codes of the artists and the art players. It need not necessarily be the three piece suits that we often seen in the high end art dos and in the auction houses. It could be anything from the ethnic chic to the universally identifiable brand products. These dress codes could be seasonal and absolutely brand and theme based. So we have a scenario where artists and the art players including the dealers and the end buyers operate/dress up in the same way which creates a class identity of its own. The art openings happen in the galleries and in these days there are opening previews and then the regular days for the common viewer. As we know that the opening previews with grand parties in the presence of stars and celebrities further add up to this class formation and even if the artist does not belong to this class is forced to upgrade himself to this class simply for survival if not for anything else. Right from the locations that one chooses to live, the mobile handsets that one uses, the places that one chooses for the family holidays, the hairstylist that one prefers, the airline carrier that one chooses to fly and what not- everything becomes a part of this class making. So we have artists today whether they make political art or apolitical art, they all belong to a new class, which is an auto-cannibalizing class which resists the intake of many just for keeping the exclusivity.

(man in the chalk circle by NN Rimzon)

The works of art produced by those artists who have just upgraded themselves to this new class at once transcend their social class on the one hand and do the same with their castes on the other. So here they become a casteless class and they are compelled to create their works in such a fashion that do not show any affiliation to their former caste or class. That means the surfaces of their works get completely polished, the materials used for producing their works become expensive, their studio spaces expand, their living conditions improve and their social dealings would get limited to the same class circles. Along with the sophistication of the lives of the artists, to put it in other words, their art works also become sophisticated catering completely to the tastes of the new class that they have of late started identifying with. So let’s think about the artists who belong to this class and yet call themselves as political artists. They can do only that kind of a political art which has political references but without all the political, theoretical and practical nuances that those references would generated in a different situation or expressed differently. So it is a different sort of packaging; like a bitter medicine covered by glossy, attractive and palatable capsules but made expensive for the use of a selected set of patients.

Here is an invisible agreement of the artists with the buying class or the ‘class’ where all the art players belong to. This agreement is simply this: Don’t topple the applecart. Let the things run smoothly. As we know that in every third world there is a first world and vice versa, for the corporate class in every political and administrative organisation there is a comfort zone and vice versa for these days political organizations are run like corporate houses. That means the artists could bring up a politically sensitive issue through their works of art but to that extent where it does not hurt any ‘parties’ involved in that particular issue. So the severest of a political critique surprisingly finds state patronage at time especially when the corporate houses and the corporate class that work in tandem with such governments and political organizations come forward to patronize such works of art only because it caters to the tastes of this corporate class. That means the works of art that are hailed as political in the present scenario are political to certain extent and beyond that it becomes a text that does not intend to hurt any of the perpetrators of those political issues. For example, if an artist prefers to work with the image of Dr.Ambedkar, he makes the image of this great man in different mediums and makes allusions through symbolic associations and presents them in a value neutral space and invites people to see and ‘understand’. The irony is that the people who in fact deal with the caste issues raised by Dr.Ambedkar would never agree with such representations for these works of art literally behave as negotiators with the perpetrators of caste atrocities than really protesting, resisting and defeating such forces. They simply hide this soft mediation for the benefit of the ruling class or the oppressive class and make the real people feel that their concern for the caste issues are so uncouth therefore unpresentable. This kind of political art causes a huge amount of invisibilization of the real caste issues. And in the meanwhile those artists who seriously deal with the caste issues in their works but in certain uncouth ways never get support from this corporate class or the upper caste that rules the market today. Funnily enough, the sophistication of the ‘Ambedkar image’ (never the idea) is no different than the innumerable decorative Buddha portraits done by those artists who do such works only because they think that Buddha has ‘market potential’ and maximum they would say that they paint Buddha because they are spiritual and they love peace.

(work by Savi Savarkar)

Let me come to the question: How one could make political art? I have two answers to this question. First of all any art done ever in this world is political. Art does not need any political tag in order to be called political because an artist whether he or she as a social animal and a thinking animal is a political being as well. Hence, his/her work cannot be apolitical; there will always be a political undertone to any work that one does. My second answer is that to create political art one has to politicise oneself. An artist has to politicise oneself thoroughly in order to create political art. How does one politicise oneself? Politicisation of the self does not mean that one has to join a political party and work for it. Nor does it mean that one has to arm oneself up and become an extremist to right the wrongs of the society. Politicising oneself simply means that making oneself sensitive and responsive to the society. But most of the people are sensitive and responsive in their own ways. This sensitising and making responsive of the self has to have certain political awareness. This awareness should be about human progress without disturbing the ecological balance while cherishing a desire for maintaining parity in the society. To put it simple this awareness is all about being universally compassionate, ecologically sensitive and working towards equal rights and justice for all the people irrespective of gender. When such awareness leads a person in his life and he happens to be an artist he cannot just be a mediator for the corporate class, nor could he take membership in it. While he could aspire for a good life, a comfortable life and life of fulfilment, he does not seek it for himself alone. He seeks for a larger society and all his creative efforts are directed towards realising such a society. This does not mean that doing charity becomes a part of a political act or awareness. Most of the times, charity comes as a part of one’s self redemption from the possible sins that he believes to have committed in his life.

(work by Savi Savarkar)

Political art is done by those artists who are aware of the issues and also who are ready to study the issues with the same verve of an activist. An artist cannot just wash his hands away by saying that I have done my bit via visual means and now it is the job of the activists to do the work in the streets. I do not either say that an artist has to go out in the streets and do activism. He could do his art and should find ways to show it before people using alternative ways of exhibition. If you are creating political art, you cannot seek the same avenues as others to exhibit your works because you have to understand that the people who run these avenues are in agreement with the tormentors, the state and the corporate market. If corporate market is supporting political art then we have to look at that work with some amount of suspicion. Real political art cannot be sophisticated the way the corporate market wants it. And real political art cannot satisfy the needs of the corporate market.

We are living in a different world, a world which is ridden by caste issues and class issues. Our lives have been reduced to that level of consumers. In these hard and trying times art cannot just make beautiful objects and say that art is just a personal means to express one’s own self. Art cannot stand without the reality to support it. Art could be imaginative and fantasy filled still it could have pointers to lead to the political realities. I do not say that art has to present a message for the people or it should lead a people to revolution. Art can be without messages but it should stir the intelligence of the people so that they could think for themselves. Art is one simple component in the larger scheme of social revolution. Artist could use any materials, any methods or any technology to create an art object; the intelligent use of it could also lead people to a particular issue. Artist’s existence as a political artist has to be with a double edge; he has to create a work of art with persuasive intelligence which is intrinsic to it and at the same time he has to initiate new ways of seeing the works of art. In a caste ridden world as ours and in a disparate world ours, and in a world divided in religious lines, art could contribute a lot in sensitising people. Artist can neither be a maker of beauty alone nor a maker of polished objects for the sake of corporate market. Artist has to be an intelligent and politically aware human being who is ready to take a plunge into the socio-cultural and political discourse of the country. He is no longer a Bohemian living in his den and living his own life but an active intelligent being whose mind constantly work towards fulfilling a world of equal rights and justice.

Post Script: An artist who wants to publish a book of visuals against Fascism went to a Delhi gallery that presented a ‘politically charged’ exhibition recently thinking that it would support him in the publication but to his surprise he was dissuaded by the gallery managers saying that his work was ‘too political’!

(All the images for representative purpose only)

Why Hanuman Alone, India has only Right Wing Art Now

(Sidharth Bhatia, Founder Editor, the Wire)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has become an art appreciator. During his election campaign in Karnataka Mr.Modi chose to praise a ‘Hanuman’ portrait done by a young artist, Karana Acharya which has become the aggressive face of the extreme right wing political outfits like the Bajrang Dal, Vsiwa Hindu Parishad and other mainstream and fringe right wing denominations. I would say Mr.Modi is a bit late in appreciating it or rather he has chosen an appropriate time to speak about it as a ‘magnificent (piece of) art’ for today he wants nothing but the support of the right wing extremist groups that could garner votes for the BJP in the forthcoming Karnataka Assembly Elections, especially through an artistic symbol which has become the ‘face’ of such groups even before Mr.Modi had noticed it for the first time. This particular face of Hanuman done by the said artist had captured the attention of the public almost two years back when it suddenly started appearing in the rear windscreens of the private cars, taxis, autos and even trucks that plied especially in Maharashtra and in some parts of North India. This Hanuman Fever had been long subsided and recently it has found a new lease of life with the aggressive right wing forces coming openly in the streets in support of the ruling party, BJP, reminding everyone of the Taliban days in Pakistan and Afghanistan two decades ago.

Sidharth Bhatia of the Wire online journal has captured the nuances of this phenomenon wonderfully in his latest article that has come up in the public domain a few hours ago. In this article he cites similar appearances of right wing aggressions in the Indian art scene and also explains why those were less harmful compared to the full scale damage that the present endorsement of the Prime Minister could cause to the Indian art and cultural scene in the coming days. What impressed me a lot in this article was the general assessment that Bhatia has made regarding the Indian contemporary artists and their approach towards the Indian politics. I want to quote Bhatia extensively on this point mainly because I have been voicing similar concerns regarding the nature of the political art of India as well as the claims that certain Indian artists make about the political nature of their works. Let me now quote Bhatia:

(The art Mr.Modi likes, Hanuman by Karan Acharya- pic. from the Wire)

“At one level this sounds like a moot question – contemporary Indian artists have not shown any propensity towards questioning the burning issues of the day. There has hardly been a significant expression, leave alone protest, about rising intolerance. The artist community did not participate in the award wapsi campaign, and nor has there been any major exhibition that comments on the important questions of the day, such as communalism or attacks on minorities. It is as if Indian contemporary art is operating in a vacuum, cut off from social reality, happy to display in galleries abroad. If and when a prominent artist overtly makes an artistic statement on an issue such as rising, ugly majoritarianism, we will see how the militant elements of the parivar react.”

(PM Modi, taken from the Wire)

Bhatia here makes a few important observations; one, contemporary artist generally do not respond to the burning issues today therefore there has been no significant artistic protest about the rising intolerance in the country. Two, Indian artists did not cooperate with the other intellectuals when they were protesting by returning their awards and prize moneys. Three, Indian artists think as if their art was produced in a vacuum and they are happy to exhibit their works in the ideologically neutral spaces like galleries. From my experience I would say that no significant artist in these days has made any ‘significantly overt’ comment on the ugly majoritarianism which would have brought the ire of the right wing forces. It is so unfortunate to see that the very same artists hail politically persecuted artists such as Ai Wei Wei of China as great artists. Our artists’ greatness is always borrowed or rather they live under the reflected glories of someone else. During the market boom years a decade ago Indian contemporary artists had gained some kind of celebrity status which none of them has till date used for voicing a serious concern for the socio-political situation of the country. I should be fair to the artists who have been doing so but the truth is that those who do protest and stand against the political, religious and ideological intolerance are not the so called ‘successful’ artists and so long as their visibility is obscured by their lack of ‘success’ in the market place their voices however significant they are may not be heeded even by the ‘Hanuman’ loving right wing forces in the streets. The protests of such artists are often shot down by the cyber soldiers of the right wing in the social networking platforms. That’s why till date not a single bullet has been wasted on a visual artist in India by the right wing extremists; for they know that these artists ‘just don’t matter.’ Why waste time?

(work by Subodh Gupta)

Let’s look at a recent interview done by an Indian Express reporter with the celebrity artist, Subodh Gupta (dated 6^th May 2018). The question goes like this: You (Subodh Gupta) have largely refrained from political works, with 1KG War Ingot (2007) as one of the few exceptions. But now you are engaging with the subjects such as displacement and migration. In Cooking the World at Art Basel, last year you offered a shared meal as the strongest indicator of inclusion and acceptance into a community.’ Now Subodh Gupta answers this question: I don’t think there is any point in jumping into things. If I am deeply political myself, there is no point in making political works. In some instances, it is being done because i think making political works has become fashionable.....As an artist I feel compelled to respond to what is happening in Syria. It is painful how the country and its people are being devastated.’

(Subodh Gupta)

I think Subodh Gupta’s answer in many ways justifies the statement made by Bhatia in the Wire. Artists are not political at all in this country. Subodh Gupta accepts that he does not want to do anything ‘political’ because he is not too involved in it. Being apolitical is the easiest way to be successful; it also translates differently being successful owes a lot to one’s silence towards the atrocities committed by the state and also in the friendship maintained with the people are partisans of the state indirectly as well as art patrons. In extreme cases what you could make is absolutely apolitical art which will go ‘value free’ and ‘ideologically free’ in any situations. Gupta accepts that it is fashionable to do political art in certain circles therefore it is a compulsion to do political art at times. And he takes the example of Syria and the mass migration caused by the ISIS. For the rich world, which is also the right wing world, that seeks the political ‘other’ likes this political issue of Syria because that could affirm their belief in making a political other in the form of terrorising Islam. Subodh Gupta talks about sharing a meal in order to create social bonding. And he could do it in Art Basel, far away from India (now someone would say that he had performed a communal eating in Delhi a few years back) where it could be taken purely as a ‘bonding’ act because the cook and the eater are from the same class (upper and rich class). But Subodh Gupta wouldn’t be speaking critically or appreciatively about the BJP ministers’ charitable act of going to the Dalit homes and eating food (despite the mosquito attacks) in order to generate social bonding (to make the Dalit ‘pure’). Subodh Gupta wouldn’t dare to speak a word about this political gimmick (and mocking of the Dalits) because if he does then he will have to be prepared to take a series of political questions. So better play it safe. It is easy to sermonise about Syria because it finds acceptance both in home and abroad for everyone wants a good ‘Islamic’ other.

(work by Riyas Komu)

I have been talking about the lack political art in India and also about the foolishness with which certain people promote certain artists as political artists so vehemently that their foolishness just slips off right in front of the people. An artist like Riyas Komu, when he creates a visual syncopation of Gandhi and Ambedkar, though it looks such a politically and socially relevant theme (as many people do think that Ambedkar has more shelf value than Gandhi now and Ambedkar is politically useful), he just does what is apparent in a clever. He neither leaves Gandhi behind or problematizes him in the presence of Ambedkar nor does he places Ambedkar politically vis-a-vis the Dalit discourse in this country. What Komu does is a visual short cut to get applause exactly the way Husain had done with Sachin Tendulkar, Madhuri Dixit and Mother Teresa. Komu is not a political artist but he chooses what is politically relevant and in currency. But several of our public intellectual openly embrace Komu’s art because it look ideologically potent and radical; but the fact is that it is exactly like the BJP appropriating  Sree Narayana Guru, Ayyankali and Ambedkar. It adds to the BJP’s vote base similarly, Komu’s so called political art increases his market share. Komu’s art has done nothing towards the ongoing Dalit discourse and as an artist and curator what he does is catering to the upper caste/class art investors by promising them to ‘curate’ some ‘politically relevant’ art from the South East Asia. But how can one do such double standard acts in the name of art making or curating while keeping oneself safely from the deeply disrupting socio-political issues taking place relentlessly in our country?

(Riyas Komu- Pic courtesy The Week)

Sidharth Bhatia points out how Mr.Modi’s sudden interest in art could give birth to a sort of ‘state art’ or ‘art endorsed by the state’. In fact there are several artists in this country who are ready to do art endorsed by the state (which is fundamentally different from the art pieces that are annually awarded by the state academies. They are not endorsement in the sense as these works of art do not support the ideology of the state). Recently, many artists sent the portraits of the prime minister and the image of the prime minister doing yoga for the national exhibition competition. Now the state stands separately from the contemporary art of the country. The day state involves it in directly the landscape of our art scene would change forever. There wouldn’t be any art shown in the public and private galleries that does not cater to the taste of the state or remains absolutely value neutral and ideologically free. It could create a scenario in which the state censors coming down to the studios and galleries to find out degenerate art either to burn them down or to show them as an example of the art that should be shunned by the people. It would tell the people that the artists who make such are dangerous to the society and even they could become the traitors of the country. But at present there is one consolation for sure; come any kind of censorship may, the censors wouldn’t find censorable art in our country because nobody is doing any politically challenging art. It would take no time to take Guptas and Komus as ‘state artists’ (court artists). Mr.Modi just needs to find some time to visit our private and public galleries. He wouldn’t find anything anti-BJP there.

Postscript: India has got artists who could challenge the state and the right wing ideology. But the censors wouldn’t find them easily. They all have found out their own personal allegories to speak secretly against the state and right wing fundamentalism. But unfortunately they are not there in the galleries. Mr.Modi may not have enough time to travel to those nooks and corners of our country where the artists sit in their private dens, shivering in political righteousness, craving for equal rights and justice and creating works that could fool the censors. Future belongs to such art. 

The Irony of Indian Contemporary Art: An Eye Opener for the Experienced and the Beginners

Are we so sure of the contemporary Indian art scene? And if someone searches for Indian contemporary art or contemporary Indian art in the internet what kind of a result is he expected to get? I give you five case scenarios and let me tell you it is not to make any artist look lesser than anyone else. As Google is the most preferred search engine, I ran a search, ‘Indian Contemporary Art’ and this is the result that I got.  

Then I ran another search, ‘Contemporary Indian Art’ and this was the result that the site provided.

Then I looked for ‘Modern Indian Art’. Lo, I had this page before me.

Then I went all out for ‘Indian Modern Art’.  Hmm, I was not getting what I was looking for.

The last search was ‘Indian Modern Contemporary Art’. I couldn’t have expected anything lesser or better.

Once again, let me state it categorically that I do not want to make condescending comment on any of the artists who are represented here with their works. They are not directly responsible for the search results. But one thing is sure that if the spiders of the net crawl around and gather so many virtual pages out of the billions in the quantum memory of the internet, then these findings should be seriously taken as Indian contemporary art in India and elsewhere. That means, what we the ‘intellectuals’ or the ‘people of high art’ see as contemporary Indian art is just a minority when compared to the vast amount of the visual material available as Indian contemporary art in the virtual space. 

 What exactly is the reason for this? One could accuse my search being too broad and if I had given specific search words definitely I would have landed on the ‘right’ kind of image. Okay, I accept that argument for the time being. But let me present another case scenario. I do not know anything about say, Bhutan. I run a search, ‘Bhutan’ to begin with and I have nothing but the pages thrown on my face by the Google search engine. Then I go for Bhutanese contemporary art and again, Google gives me Bhutanese ‘contemporary art’. After this exercise with the search for Indian contemporary art, how can I believe that I get the ‘right kind of Bhutanese art’? Still, I have to believe that it is what Bhutanese art is. Why, because I do not have any specifics. And if I need specifics, I should start with a contemporary art library where Bhutanese contemporary art is seriously discussed or I should approach a professor who is well versed in Bhutanese art or an art consultant who is dealing with Bhutanese contemporary art. If that is the case what is Google doing here?

Should I say that Google is a stupid search engine because I know that it is not the ‘right’ kind of contemporary art that I know as the mainstream, intellectual and intelligent art? Or should I say that the key words that fed into the mouth of Google were not right enough? If so how would I reach the right words? I have already mentioned the difficulties regarding knowing the right kind of search words. So a person going by this kind of search is obviously going to land in the wrong places and there would be chances totally misunderstanding the Indian contemporary art scenario. I am not talking about the people who ‘know’ what it is but the large population in the world that ‘does not know’ what Indian contemporary art is. If cursory interest is the trigger for a search then it is always the general search words not the specific ones. Then you would say that you should click on the ‘All’ button than the ‘Images’ button. Okay, accepted, but what about someone who is an artist who does not want to read but want to see only. There are millions of the people who use internet who prefer to see than to read. So how could we tell them to hit the button ‘All’. Then you will zero in on the common intelligence called common sense or discretion. Arrey bhai, if your common sense is directing you only to the images what are you going to do? 

We have to accept the fact that there is a huge disparity between what is ‘projected’ as contemporary art and what is ‘proliferated’ as contemporary art. We become a poor minority that understands what is projected. But the majority is that set of people that understand what is proliferated. If Google is to be trusted, then we could easily say that in India and elsewhere modern art is proliferated and understood as we have seen in the images shown above. Obviously not as the ones that we see and try to understand if we give ‘specific key words’. We in India should really be surprised to see this finding because we believe that we are in the making of a contemporary visual culture for the world as a part of one of the surging South East Asian art markets. However, what we see here are derivatives of the western modern adequately tinged with the Indian modern. And if there are more numbers of such images in the internet, then it translates easily into their huge presence in the art market. What does it mean? It means nothing but there is a parallel market that does not care about that art market which is driven by the so called intellectuals and auction results. The artists in this stream may not be reaping high dividends and profits nor are they becoming stars and celebrities. But there is a market where they are stars and at times they may be faceless artists who just produce works according to demand. Believe in it or not, such a market is strong. Do we need to say that it corrupts the minds of the people? I have to say it does but I do not stop it at that. I reiterate that it such art corrupts the minds of the people, then definitely our intellectual, political, rich and mainstream art fails absolutely to resist such degenerate art from proliferating. It happens because the mainstream art has become exclusivist and elitist. It does not touch the hearts and minds of the people. Even if it does, the hearts and minds for its touching are carefully chosen in the sanitized spaces of aesthetical appreciation. Rest of the aam janta is excluded from it. That’s how we have such ridiculous shows about the pathetic conditions of Indian farmers and get opened with wine and cheese parties.