India, in Images

Homai Vyarawalla: A Retrospective

NGMA, Mumbai

25th February - 10th April 2011

Children everywhere are schooled in a certain version of their country’s past. They are taught to look at leaders as heroes, at events as epic, at struggles as noble. The present tends to be seen as a betrayal of everything that led up to it. Then these children grow up, and if they are still thinking, and learning, and looking about themselves, they realize that the past is less pristine and more complicated than it has been made to seem. The makers of that past, too, are no more than mortals – their motives as murky and as questionable as ours.

We know this, because we’ve been through it. We have inherited a post-modern, ‘glocal’ world in which everything is relative and all isms are passé. I, for one, know that photography has often been used to construct reality rather than to depict it. That shots that have been heralded for their spontaneity, have often been carefully composed. That in India, in particular, photography has had a chequered history – it has been used to ‘survey’ local populations, to romanticize an outpost of an empire, and, immediately before and after Independence, to create a national consciousness, to document rituals and events, and to foster a certain ‘idea’ of India. Early Indian photography charts the course of our collective imaginings, and retains great academic importance.

Knowing all this, I should have left Homai Vyarawalla’s retrospective at the NGMA feeling informed, rather than moved. But images work in unexpected ways.

Most of Vyarawalla’s photos are interesting, as one would expect – they capture interesting people living in enormously interesting times. Some of them are amusing – shots of British revellers in drag at Gymkhana parties and women giggling as they participate in air raid drills. Others have an odd ‘textbook’ feel to them, that their captions further emphasize – ‘A Day in the Life of an Indian Farmer,’ and ‘How Parsis celebrate Navroze,’ are two photo-essays that come to mind.

But several images – crowds milling around Parliament House to celebrate India’s first Independence Day, people running behind the train carrying Mahatma Gandhi’s ashes to Allahabad, members of the Congress voting on Partition, a young Dalai Lama crossing over into India in full ceremonial dress – are compelling. We’ve seen these pictures, and we know the stories, but they retain their power nonetheless.

I tend to respond to photographs, largely because they tell us how things used to be. We know the past was not a simpler time, but which one of us hasn’t been tempted to cast it in that light? After all, if we were to accept that things were always as convoluted as they are now, it would be difficult to believe in the possibility of a better future.

It was in this spirit that I responded to some of Vyarawalla’s pictures. Was there really a time when Sanjay Gandhi was just a boy who liked frosted cake? When prime ministers took carousel rides? When the Bhakara dam heralded progress? When Delhi and Bombay were beautiful, tree-lined and spacious? When photographers were invited to presidential parties and ‘teas’ and were sent hand-written thank-you notes?

There is also Vyarawalla herself to consider – a young lady from an orthodox Parsi family, who travelled around the country taking her pictures while dressed in a sari. She was India’s first woman press photographer, was close to all the leaders (particularly the Nehrus) and was fittingly referred to as ‘Mummy-ji’ by tyros. A compelling woman who took some compelling pictures, and influenced how we remember our past. Which made me wonder who was busy chronicling this country’s present, and fervently hope that there were men, women, and moments worth the effort.  

Art in, and as, Bottles

I've discussed the ineffability of cool elsewhere.

Cool might be difficult to describe, but it is  easy to recognize. A few weeks ago, it manifested itself in the guise of the Absolut Art Tour featuring Subodh Gupta. A show as tight and enjoyable as anyone could have asked for. Whether it was Absolut Britto, bright and cartoon-like; Absolut Secret/ Dubufeet, red-white-blue and geometric; Absolut Indiana, all signature lettering; Absolut Fairhurst; flecked with plastic shopping tags; Absolut Vautier, Absolut Marischal;  Absolut Warhol - the works were just plain fun. Of course there's no ignoring Absolut Subodh Gupta - a vodka bottle crafted in his signature style. This was my first 'up close and personal' encounter with Gupta's work. Though I knew what to expect, it was still interesting to see commonplace steel vessels lose their everyday identities and assume a wholly different, collective form.

I realize, now, that it is, in fact, possible for art to come together with marketing and result in something engaging. Or is this show just the exception that proves the rule? Either way, somewhere in Stockholm, there is an Absolut Art Museum ticket with my name on it.

Many Media, Some Notes

Sweet Unease by Ranbir Kaleka

Volte, Colaba

16^th December 2010 – 15^th February 2011

I’ve always had some difficulty engaging with trans-media art. Unlike the more traditional and conventional forms that I have grown accustomed to, works of this nature rarely come with the in-built cues that tell viewers what to watch out for, what to attend to, what to acknowledge. Trans-media art makes for a more immersive experience – viewers must contend with multiple streams of information and sensory stimuli, and arrive at a negotiated understanding of what they see, hear and sense. Viewing such art is a challenging and often unwieldy process – which is why it helps when the effort seems rewarding.

‘Sweet Unease’ Ranbir Kaleka’s first solo exhibition in Bombay, offers an introduction to some of the art he has been producing over the last decade. These trans-media works are simultaneously interesting and intricate, consisting of video, audio, pictures, and paintings overlaid on one another. Each work calls for a conscious engagement – whether it is ‘Cul-de-sac at Taxila’ (2010), a Murakami-esque juxtaposition of a man, a hammer and a horse; ‘The Kettle’ (2010), a riff on the many settings and scenes an everyday object can inhabit; or ‘He Was a Good Man’ (2008) a meditation on the inanity of an ordinary human life.

I approached these works looking for a hook or two that would allow me to access them in their entirety – a wasted effort, because I soon realized that there is no one element that holds them together. They are complex, and demand time and absorption. Eventually, I had to permit myself to experience the works in fragments and parts, and it was only through repeated viewings that I was able to derive some sense of the wholes. It seems to me that this lack of coherence is at least partly deliberately constructed. 

Kaleka superimposes the bizarre onto the ordinary, the almost-there onto the most-certain, and his works retain a slipperiness that evokes those moments in which we realize that things are not always what they seem, and that there are cracks beneath even the most solid surfaces. He forces us to grasp at images and meanings, and there is a palpable open-endedness to the viewing. There is an all too rare conjunction here between media and theme(s), and I wonder why we haven’t seen or heard more of him. 

Myth ↔ Reality: Constructing Cult-u’re - Group Show

The Guild, Colaba

4^th-30^th January, 2011

The name of the exhibition, the punctuation, the pun, all work together to assert that this is a show about the continuous making, re-making and un-making of myth, fact, belief and consequently, culture. We are invited to think of culture as mutable, as a dialogue rather than inheritance.

Such themes that lend themselves easily to multiple interpretations. Sutras scrawled on driftwood, the evanescence of reflections, the mysteries of the physical world in which a single substance can be liquid, solid and vaporous, the implications of the many meanings and pronunciations of a given name, the increasingly intimate connections between consumer choice and personal identity, the multiplicity of personal narratives – these are all legitimate, if not equally accomplished or sophisticated ways in which to address the constructs of self and permanency.

The works I found most interesting were Job Koelewijn’s ongoing reading project, in which the act of reading is endowed with physicality, transforming our experience of text. Renata Poljak’s videos and photographs spotlighted the intersection of costume, performance and nationality – perhaps the show’s only attempt to explore culture within an explicitly political framework. 

The show was relatable, accessible, earnest and honest, but I must admit it would have been interesting to see a little more conceptual complexity, and to have had the artists push their envelopes a bit further. Having known the curator, Veerangana Solanki, for some time now, I am aware that she attempts to seek out artists we don’t often see, and media we don’t attend to enough (along with everything else, two movies by Johan Grimonprez are screened at regular intervals). She’s succeeded on both those counts, although the show is fun, rather than exceptional. 

I Went, I Saw, I Liked

More than most other contemporary artists, Anish Kapoor has a reputation that very decidedly precedes him. He been feted and celebrated so widely, and so well, that it is difficult to approach his shows as a first-time viewer with anything resembling objectivity. One perceives his work through the lens of all that has already been declared and exclaimed upon – and it is possible that there is little of consequence left to say. Which is why I wended my way to Mehboob Studios not to analyze, but to experience Anish Kapoor’s particular brand of art.

The viewing is very much a bodily experience – an experiment in juggling so many different ways of seeing and perceiving that the combined effect is likely to leave one reeling, quite literally. It is possible to walk towards the glittering surfaces of ‘Untitled, 2010’ and ‘Untitled, 2008’ as well as the multiple ‘Non-Objects’ and feel one’s sense of space and proximity flounder. There is a point at which one feels inclined to almost ‘tip over’ into the illusory spaces they create.* These are not so much sculptures as they are cleverly designed rabbit-holes that test our notions of up and down, big and small, motion and stillness. And lest one get too drawn into the polish and gleam of metal, two large waxworks anchor the exhibition space with their looming solidity. ‘Shooting into the Corner’ is the more spectacular of the two, consisting of a cannon-like device that shoots wax pellets onto a white wall. The echo of the shot reverberates loudly, deliberately unsettling viewers and introducing an aural element into the show.

I saw the exhibition as part of a guided tour, and while the guide left much to be desired, I was impressed by the degree to which audiences were moved – either intellectually or physically – by what Kapoor had created. Men and women of different ages walked back and forth between the pieces, examining their own widths and heights from all angles, pulling funny faces. People spoke articulately about how the works affected them, interested them, excited them. One person noted the contradiction between the fluidity of the metal, and the heaviness of the wax. Another spoke about reflections and new perceptions. Someone else got so nauseous that he had to leave the room. All of this happened in spite of the fact that the venue – run down and devoid of personality – was ill chosen, and the placement of some of the works seemingly arbitrary.

It has been a while since a show in Bombay has done something to its audience. I suspect that while some of us enjoy thinking about art, many more of us enjoy responding to it. I recommend this show - because it is Anish Kapoor, because it is his first time exhibiting in India, because Bandra is conveniently located, because the works are distinctive, but mostly because they have to be encountered, rather than seen.

*Which is probably why there are so many anxious docents posted on ‘guard duty.’

Two Reviews, Too Late

Nine: Her Magic Square

The Viewing Room, Colaba

Nine: Her Magic Square brought together mixed media works by nine women artists, some better known than others. Their art reflected different vocabularies and registers – Anjum Singh’s works were quietly humorous, Debasree Das earnestly depicted the urban alienation from nature, Farida Batool’s holographic images were lush, Chila Kumari Burman’s bite-sized collages vehemently kitsch and Niyeti Chadha’s works spare and geometric. There was, however, an underlying unity of themes – urbanization, femininity (or perhaps female-ness), the banality and colorfulness of the everyday, and the evocation of a calmer liminal space.

I particularly liked Smriti Dixit’s sculptures, created almost entirely from the plastic extensions affixed to price tags. The intricacy and delicacy of these works belied their large size and the abrasive texture of the material. I was also interested in the way Chada’s planes and patterns managed to create a sense of movement and depth completely at odds with the severity of her straight lines. My favorite, though, was Das’ ‘Looking Again,’ a cabinet-like space filled with miniature paper bags onto which were painted a variety of images – transistor radios, gramophones, bicycles, old-school telephones, steel tiffins – the paraphernalia of a time past, anachronistic and perhaps imbued with a certain nostalgia. Burman’s psychedelia was a tad predictable, and I had mixed feelings about Jenny Bhatt’s deliberately irreverent take on contemporary art. It’s difficult to deny that some of the art we see today is pretentious, more about hype and less about substance. Even so, making an artistic and aesthetic statement by parodying other works or indeed, art itself, requires a certain amount of nuance, reflection and due process. Without this, such gestures will fail to withstand serious scrutiny.

The term ‘woman artist’ is contentious, and equal numbers of artists either wear the label as a badge of honor, or attempt to distance themselves from it.  But even as women artists (self proclaimed and otherwise) breach new bastions and break new ground, address varied concerns and engage with diverse forms and practices, it is possible to trace the shapes and patterns of certain similarities in their work – a responsiveness to the world and its minutiae, painstaking detail, and an experimentation with new media, material and spaces, often salvaged from the realm of the ‘domestic’ – found objects, bindis, embroidery.

This show has probably been dismantled by now. But it was interesting, eclectic and offered viewers the opportunity to acquaint themselves with artists who have not yet been granted their ‘fifteen minutes’ of superstardom under the arc lights of the Indian art firmament.

Splitting the Other by Nalini Malani

Chemould Art Gallery, Fort and Project 88, Colaba

1^st – 30^th November, 2010

As one of India’s leading and most influential artists, Nalini Malani needs no introduction – her reputation precedes her both within and outside the country. Splitting the Other was Malani’s response to the riots that ripped apart Gujarat in 2002, yet these were works that could equally mourn other tragedies in other places. There were two parts to the show – paintings and a single video installation at Chemould, and a number of mixed media works at Project 88. I visited Chemould, and came away feeling discomfited. Malani’s enormous, multi-paneled paintings were populated by a profusion of entrails, bodies, animals, machines, weapons, semi-human and semi-mythic creatures, either oddly static, squirming or engaged in acts of violence and destruction. The bright colors were juxtaposed uneasily with the content.

The video installation didn’t make for easy viewing – a deliberate and effective undermining of Raja Ravi Varma’s ‘Galaxy of Musicians,’ an iconic painting that represents women arrayed in traditional community-specific finery and playing different instruments. This painting was first exhibited at the World Conference of Religions in 1910. It was intended to be a statement of India’s much vaunted plurality and diversity, and was received in that spirit. More lately, it has been interpreted not so much as a statement, but as a wishful, even naïve construction. Malani’s video overlaid Ravi Varma’s work with ghostly images of women flitting in and out of the frame, assuming the places and faces of the multiple musicians, while an audio track consisting of riot victims describing their experiences played on loop. A piercing scream rang through the gallery every few minutes.

This was a prickly show, impossible to like, and difficult to grapple with. It was a show with an explicit agenda, and in terms of actual artistic merit, I’m not sure how it ranks as compared to Malani’s other exhibitions. But I suppose that’s besides the point. 

Why Art?

The Diwali social whirligig has seen me run into all sorts of people - strangers, acquaintances, those whom I keep at bay most of the year but just can't seem to avoid at this time. Inevitably, one uses these encounters to hurriedly swap news, or make quick introductions. I've found that in these contexts, the statement 'I'm studying art theory,' tends to elicit a predictable set of responses - polite puzzlement, confusion about to how best to pursue (or close) the conversation, the occasional joke and even condescension. In turn, I tend to shrug or murmur something appropriately self-deprecating, aware that my interest in art can seem like a quirk, a fixation at odds with the demands of work and possibly even life.

I understand the difficulty people have with taking art seriously - in the age of concept gone wild, art can often seem incoherent and impossible to relate to. Critics can come across as pompous pedants, galleries as forbidding, prices as hugely inflated. Art has always been seen as elitist, and it continues to occupy rarefied realms - operating within a circuit of biennales and lavish openings. In India, in particular, the surging demand for works, the sudden mushrooming of galleries and exhibition venues, and a sad lack of critical scholarship have combined to create an environment in which mediocrity can and does thrive. But there is some truly exceptional work happening here as well, and the once minuscule art world is growing bigger - not necessarily more inclusive, but perhaps that too will happen.

For my part, I've come to realize that there is an inherent value in understanding art and learning about it. Art, especially good art, mirrors changes in society, in culture, in philosophy and even science. The best artists and the most interesting art movements mine their milieu for ideas, issues and inspiration - the notion that all art-making is driven by internal psychic dramas is erroneous. An intelligent interpretation of an art work can be one of the most interesting ways in which to learn about the past, since history, religion and art have long been intimately intertwined. Even an analysis of art markets can reveal a great deal about consumer behaviour and social change. 

It is difficult to subscribe to the romantic notion that art is a force for change, but it can ask questions of us - some that we recognize only decades after they have been posed. Our collective response to art is always a work in progress, reflective of a making and negotiation of shared values that could either persist, or erode with time.

The world is a complicated and interesting place, but it is overwhelming. Everyone needs a lens through which their understandings of the world are refracted and absorbed. I suppose that is ultimately what art offers me - a prism, a sense-making mechanism. It's interesting, sometimes beautiful, sometimes bizarre. Art is important. 

Different Strokes

 I visited two very different exhibitions at two very different galleries yesterday. I spent too much time at one, and too little at the other. I’d been warned that this would happen, and that I’d regret it.

Galleryske for Gallery BMB, Gallery BMB, 6^th September to 9^th October

BMB is currently exhibiting five artists from Galleryske, Bangalore. Most of the works have been created specifically for this exhibition, and include a triptych, videos, prints, sculptures and an installation.

Tailor Mama by Srinivasa Prasad consists of photos taken when he traveled around his neighborhood sewing up clothes people brought to him. The original cycle, complete with attached sewing machine, spools of thread and scissors, is also on view. Two other photos document his attempt at intervening in the natural order of the seasons by constructing a nest in a barren tree during winter. While I like the idea of someone wandering around a locality offering to patch up clothes for free, I’m not sure what to make of the nest-construction gesture.

Zakkir Hussain’s triptych, called ‘No Title,’ is an attempt at spotlighting ‘…punished form…which has been mutilated repeatedly in the cultural arena of the dominant.’ The violence and brutality depicted here is immediately recognizable, but I failed to respond to the work in any significant way.

Navin Thomas’ video explores the after-life of junk. Avinash Veeraraghavan’s works decode and then re-construct the fragmented visuals of dreams. Dense and packed with details to create layers, the artist is at least partially successful in capturing what he describes as ‘the tangled quality of the dream story.’ Sakshi Gupta’s donkey and semi-embryonic bird are large, spooky, and surreal.

The problem (and yes, there is a problem), with this show is that while the works are probably interesting in and of themselves, they seem jumbled together here. There’s no continuity, no theme, not even enough context created for us to really appreciate where the artists are coming from. BMB hosted a successful exhibition of women artists earlier this year – in spite of that being a group show, there was enough of an overlapping of artistic concerns for there to be some coherence for the viewer. This time around, it just isn’t enough that all of the artists are associated with the same gallery in Bangalore.

Rivers of Blood by Paula Sengupta, Gallery Chemould, 10^th August – 10^th September

I visited this exhibition too late – just hours before it was on the verge of being dismantled. I walked in on a Power Point presentation being made by the artist, and could only see a few of the works. Most of what I have to say is based on hasty viewing and immediate impressions – but these were enough to tell me that I had missed an opportunity to engage with a very moving and resonant exhibition.

Sengupta’s show is dedicated to her family, who were displaced from (what was then) East Bengal in 1947. Decades later, she traveled to Bangladesh to re-trace, or perhaps, re-acquaint herself with what would have been her parents’ lives there. The works installed here are a by-product of that trip. They address issues of displacement, the idea of home, the loss of a way of a life, the power and fallibility of ‘return.’ These are complex themes, and Sengupta has done them justice.

Each installation is packed with nuance and story – a bed covered in a bedspread made out of her father’s school badges, also including a short video and a diary extract recounting her own experience of visiting the institution. Cabinets enclose kurtas, linens and pillows embroidered with folk-stories in the traditional mode, now lost. My favorite work immortalizes shukti (dried fish) which is the central cooking element in her father’s former village. There is a dining table; a table-cloth embroidered with local scenes, figures and words; elaborate menus that are decorated with a faux-applique, consisting of lists of ingredients and descriptions of local dishes; all overlaid by audio tracks describing each dish, its constituents, flavor and aroma. My sister very perceptively described this as the ‘unfolding’ of a meal – families at a restaurant looking through a menu, with the elders beginning to describe how things used to taste when they were made back home.

This painstaking layering is a monument to what happens when people lose their ‘place’ in the world – all the minutiae of smell, sound, taste, ingredients and locality are swept away. To ‘go back’ is to acknowledge the painful truth that the loss has been overwhelming, and is irrevocable.

This is the first of Sengupta’s shows that I have seen. Her lecture cum presentation indicated that she is very interested in families – their culture, their rituals, their narratives. She has mined the familial histories and dramas of her own ancestors and those of her husband’s for inspiration and material. She seems to enjoy working with ‘found objects,’ wrapping them one upon the other, layer upon telling layer, while also occasionally inviting her family to participate in ‘re-finding’ some of these objects.

Her approach seems to be interesting and thought-provoking, a genuine attempt at grappling with all that goes into making a ‘way of life.’ Rivers of Blood was an exhibition that demanded time. I am sorry to have missed it.