Will The Roach Survive?

Purists be damned, now even art can’t escape politics. The message—thoughdelayed by a few decades in our country—was loud if not exactly clear, as a group ofartists got together at a farm studio in the Capital for some reconstructive surgery atthe invitation of Sahmat, the Delhi-based cultural organisation with a professedideological edge. The artists had a choice, between the humble rickshaw and the humblerthela (handcart), which they had to adorn with their artistic vision.

A few weeks before that, viewers of the Tenth Triennale exhibits were confronted by awork of monumental creepiness. Hema Upadhyay’s award-winning creation had a wallcorner spangled with swarms of M-seal and wire cockroaches. That’s not all. At Khoj,an annual two-week artists-in-residence workshop last October, again in Delhi, SoniaKhurana’s work consisted of a well from which emanated wails of a drowning woman evenas the viewer saw his own face reflected in the water.

Welcome to the quirky world of the ‘postmodern’ in India. Under the looselabel of installation art, this movement, though limited to small galleries andartists’ workshops, is now gathering momentum with artists weary of the over-ratedbeauty and goodness of art mart products. Art, as these neo-converts are increasinglysaying, is meant to communicate ideas rather than indulge in the luxury of ‘pureaesthetics’—the mark of an unconcerned elite obsessed with some kind ofidealisation of beauty. But the popular success of this art form is contingent on thetransformation of the traditional public taste, which is happening, albeit slowly.

Currently, there are few galleries and fewer collectors interested in installations.But with more adventurous artists getting seduced by its potential, this creativeenterprise now doesn’t fight shy of the dust and grime of social activism. Thesesculptural statements recall a similar artistic moulting that began in early 20th centuryFrance when Surrealists and Dadaists led by Andre Breton and Marcel Duchamp, fed up withthe rigid demarcations of plastic arts, began producing deliberately mismatched‘readymades’ to challenge and question accepted notions of art, beauty andaesthetics.

Many of our artists who’ve adopted this new experimental art form have done so tocall attention to issues which could not be addressed in their totality by traditionalinterventions. The Babri issue gave an impetus to inventive collaborations, primarily dueto its emotive appeal. “A new art form arises whenever there is an exigency,”remembers Nalini Malani, who opted for the fertile time-space vectors of this new genre inthe aftermath of the demolition. Vivan Sundaram too debuted as an installation artistaround that time with his largely pictorial Babri Memorial in Delhi’s aifacs. InMumbai, artists like Malani got together to “make works of art that would make peoplelook and think”.

Not that all artists chose to insinuate their works with social meaning. M.F.Husain’s legendary brio made him take a bold detour with a show titled‘Swetambari’. Those invited to the inauguration were shocked to see the gallerywall festooned with nothing but yards and yards of white fabric. But that was the idea.Other well-known painters like Satish Gujral, Bhupen Khakhar and Anjolie Ela Menon wentonly as far as dabbling in sculpture but not at the cost of abandoning their chosen forte.Menon, in fact, created objects which were “quite the opposite of installations”in 1994-95. These were junked chest-of-drawers, chairs and cupboards which had beenpainted on and resurrected to their former utility. Says she: “We’re still asociety that retrieves and reuses things, so making art out of so-called waste is initself an indulgence.”

Artists showcasing art with social concern noticeably began with the first DelhiTriennale (1982) where Gogi Saroj Pal, who was known mostly as a painter, utilised a16-foot-long stretch of Lalit Kala Akademi wall for her assemblage of etchings,lithographs and family memorabilia and called it Memory Wall. This incidentally is alsofeatured in the prestigious Oxford History of Western Art. But these were staccato startsto what was to become the art of the future. The artist in the new artscape is more likethe director of a theatre performance. Here, a performance of readymades is woven around acentral idea. But, as Menon points out, “our avant-gardists are 20 years behind theWest where installations came about as protest against galleries and middlemen”.There are others like Manjit Bawa who describe installations as a refuge for artists“not very good in painting”. Pooja Sood, coordinator for the Khoj InternationalArtists Workshop, however, feels the ill-will among senior artists comes from“feeling threatened because they live by rigid categories”. The categories inthemselves, feels Chachhi, are alien to us since Indians have a history of using a mix ofmedia. “In Rajasthan they have this folk tradition called Babuji ni phad wherestories are told through scroll paintings, song and dance,” she explains.

But the bigger problem is financial in nature. This is ironical because this expensive artform is meant to question the idea of art monopolised by a small economically superiorsegment. “India is not a rich country and installations need money. Neither is thereany financial support, nor are there any buyers,” says Bawa, who did an installationfor Delhi’s Imperial Hotel which now occupies its godown space. Peter Nagy of NatureMorte, one of the few galleries in Delhi which exhibit installations, says he sells suchsculptures “with great difficulty”. That again is because of a dearth ofenthusiasm among collectors and museums. “In a country of one billion there are justfive-odd installation collectors,” says he, “besides the art market here ispredominantly based on paintings.”

So, how come there are a lot more artists today who are dabbling with installation as agenre? Says Sundaram: “You are making ephemeral art which goes against the markettrend.” Avers Reena Saini, an alumnus of Mumbai’s JJ School of Art: “Youknow these works won’t find a market but as an artist you have to keepexploring.”

Also established art tends to ignore the unsung uniqueness in the so-called ordinary.“I teach art in a fairly elite school in Mumbai and it is very difficult for me toexplain to my students what life in a chawl can be like,” says Mohua Rai, whoseinstallation for Sahmat’s ‘Art on the Move’ is precisely about that.Jahangir Jani’s float-like work called Manish/a Colaco Divas, Lalbaug, Mumbai has apierced and garlanded male torso telling the story of divisive politics and hate.Bhubaneshwar’s Sovan Kumar’s Mobile House has a laptop and a ceramic commodecondense the idea of middle-class complacency. Is it art of the times or another avatar ofthe emperor’s new clothes? Ironically, only the market will tell.