nilima Sheikh and Shilpa gupta

Yesterday, I went to see Nilima Sheikh’s exhibition at LKA ‘Each Night Put Kashmir in Your Dreams’. Regrettably it wasn’t the ideal viewing experience as there were lots of people fussing around, taking photographs, so the lights were switched on and off and tables and ladders brought in and out of the space where the nine scrolls hung. However, I did not leave because having glimpsed the imagery and read some of the words, I had to linger, look and ponder. The colours were jewel-like, the imagery almost romantic even as the words reminded me they came from a deep sense of pain.

In the recent weeks I have been studying the art of Shilpa Gupta, through the book published by Vadehra, which seems completely at odds with these exquisite scrolls painted by Nilima Sheikh [and her team of assistants] and so a comparison was inevitable.

I like Shilpa Gupta’s in your face commentary, which brings forth a new media and new imagery that is intellectually exciting even though I am not exactly comforted by it. On the other hand here were Nilima Sheikh’s beautiful, painstakingly executed images and colours so soothing to the eye and heart. The pain was ever so subtly etched in colour and form with words of historians and poets printed at the back, telling you about the brutality behind it. The contrasting imagery of two artists simultaneously addressing similar issues, compelled me question Sheikh’s stance.

There is a very subtle depiction of pain. The words made it an experience I could feel but while the visual didn't contradict this, it also didn't represent the angst of a mother who said “My son never asked me, Ammaji, can I go to Pakistan and become a militant? He simply left. I wept.” What I saw was a deeply romanticized view of pain and destruction of a paradise that resides in memory. In a bid to preserve what little is left of the beauty there once was, Sheikh delicately presented this as fractured and disintegrating through the precise but scattered placement of fragile stencil prints of varying patterns and divides the panels vertically or otherwise. The grieving figures did not howl but gently wept even as they clung to trees in distress or clasped knuckles in prayer to a God whose existence it is imperative they believe in. Her grieving was not a public lament but a personal one that encompasses the collective.

Shilpa Gupta’s military camouflage, life-like and life-sized figures, performances, videos and bottles of blame do not allow for any romanticization. She is an artist of today, of the generation that has the guts to say it like it is. We have had plenty of skirting of issues and hiding behind the garb of spirituality, not coming out in the open with our views, but festering within, creating more harm than good. Sheikh however isn’t ignoring the issue nor is she engaging with it as all there is to see or say. Her Kashmir is filled with the beauty of carved lattices that sometimes depict the sky, sometimes the earth, the prayer rug and sometimes the space in between them. She reminds us of the tall shady Chinar trees, the jewel colours of lotus pinks, lake aquamarines and innumerable shades of green; of nature blooming in her resplendent glory, unhindered by human greed.

She made me long for the Kashmir I visited during summer holidays as a child. In 2003and later in 2004 I was invited by the Government to conduct workshops for crafts persons in Sringar and I remember being appalled and very disturbed by the armed military personnel that surrounded the Dal Lake or the road to Gulmarg. The shikara ride was just not the same, nor the walk around the Lake, nothing was. Her memories take me back to a time of happiness; they are what we can lean upon, to prevent further damage to this paradise on earth. Her Kashmir celebrates its splendour so that we may not forget. Even as she mourns the ravages; with splatters of red, vaguely resembling blood-stained foot-prints or inserting emotionally charged reds and purples in a soft pastel field; she does not focus so much on the destruction but gives us hope. Each scroll quietly asks you why should we only remember the pain and if we forget the beauty then what will sustain our endeavour to recoup.

If the scrolls had not been hung vertically but placed on the floor, they could have been prayer rugs, each a heartfelt wish of one who still believes. She wove a subtle thread of pain and memory or beauty, or anger, lament and hope. She spoke the language not of the fragile youth that have not seen better, who clamour for change without knowing what is to be changed or how; wrestling with the present without the capacity to envision a future. She spoke the language of humanity in all its humility, of one that has seen beauty, experienced it and also pain. So while pained by the present predicament, she cannot and does not give up hope.

In allowing us to revel in the beauty, she permits us take ownership. We may turn away from terror and blame, because we feel inadequate to address this extreme situation or take responsibility for, but when there’s beauty behind it, we are more willing. Sheikh knows that Kashmir, like everything else in life is not something that exists in isolation and that by omission or commission each one of us is responsible for the way things are today. Every single moment we experience today is a consequence of what we ignored yesterday, or took for granted. And when you assume ownership, then there is no question of pointing fingers, By re-creating the paradise we have nearly destroyed and are steadfastly ravaging to nothingness, she didn't just tells us what was wrong but showed us what we can re-claim.

This is the inherent difference that I saw between the youthfulness of Shilpa Gupta’s art and the wisdom of Nilima Sheikh as she urges us ‘Each night put Kashmir in your dreams.’ However, sometimes I did think that given the kind of communication over-load that we do deal with today, Sheikh’s message is a little too subtle, and that while Shilpa Gupta and her contemporaries could learn a great deal from the deeply finessed art of Nilima Sheikh, we do need some straight talking too.

Innovative...But is it Art?

                                    

Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration

                                                                           -  Thomas Alva Edison

Art is today an experience that goes beyond painted canvases, sculpture and etchings; to include video, installation, ceramics and more. Artists are not confined to a single media. We see painters and potters working with steel and printmakers extending their repertoire to include fabric. In addition, intellectual boundaries that separated art from design are diminishing. However, this wide spectrum is also aiding confusion and frequently the question arises, is this art? 

                                                                                                     

Since art mirrors life, it will reflect the confusion that is part and parcel of contemporary living, but is that good enough? Is a chaotic existence reason to produce confused art? The role of the artist has changed with each decade and we are continually re-defining its criteria. Art as the manifestation of a creative human response to the environment is predominantly emerging as a comment on society, rather than a preoccupation with the self. In fact, much art that I have seen seems to preclude the self in its commentary, implying a deficient honesty in researching ideas which are therefore presented with lack of clarity.

Baptist Coelho

Baptist Coelho, recipient of the Art India, Promising artist of the year award 2009 presented some video works and installation at India Habitat Centre, where he reflected his position vis a vis the armed forces and within it the role of the soldier, which he mentioned in conversation, was to his mind “a really stupid thing.” His video entitled: ‘I was not born for the Three Point Contact’ focuses on the evolution of man from ape to Homo erectus. With each stage he wears an additional garment until he is clad for weathering snowy, mountainous terrain. This clothing is without markings that identify race or nationality. The man carries a pick-axe which Coelho informed is the most valuable tool for mountain climbers and soldiers patrolling the Siachen glacier.

He may be forgiven his naive comment about a soldier, being “a really stupid thing”; for battle as an essential element of life, from the personal level to that of nations is perhaps something we understand through the process of living, where the Bhagavad Gita has been accorded sanctity, precisely because it reflects the truth of confrontation as inevitable when power is abused. However, the video in question did not reveal anything more than a visual presentation of how man may have evolved. The layers could signify a veneer man hides behind; representing emotional protection adopted in the course of daily living, but the army reference was singularly absent.



Seema Kohli

Technology permits us present a point of view without the rigour of first having to master the craft of drawing and painting; tackling perspective and presentations of a verifiable, physical reality. With the digital camera and video, ‘reality’ can be recorded and presented with ease. However, what makes this ‘Art’ is how the artist locates himself, emotionally and intellectually, within the context; distilling personal angst to reflect an objective view, resonating with the truth of this predicament - universal to the human condition. If Coelho had focussed on finding himself in his idea, he may have found it more appropriate to appreciate the rigour, both physical and emotional that soldiers endure to protect our safety, allowing us the luxury of making art; rather than position it as irrelevant. The sentiment against warfare and the arduous situation of the soldier is well taken, but the video fails to evoke the idea as intended.

Remen Chopra

The gallery has seemingly transformed from a space of formal presentations to one of experimental ideas. Jindal Steel has been actively promoting the use of steel in art, inviting artists and designers to participate. In ‘Ashtanayika’, curated by Dr.Alka Pande we saw Manisha Bhattacharya and Trupti Patel meld steel with ceramics; Kanchan Chander re-create her trade-mark torsos in steel, and others attempt a dialogue with the medium. The delicacy of Manisha’s porcelain, steel-stemmed flowers was regrettably lost in a space that was too brightly lit to accommodate large-sized doors, books and lotus seats. Remen Chopra had been working with steel for about a year prior to this invitation and her deeper engagement and understanding of the medium is reflected in the resultant art-work, where she displayed sensitivity in handling the material that was largely absent elsewhere.

Pankaj and Nidhi

From painting canvases with delicate filigree work, Seema Kohli is open to exploring the cold hardness of steel, but neither the lavish-scaled book with water flowing through it, representing the Yajur Veda or the voluptuous contours of an ill-conceived lotus seat; bring out facets of a philosophy that has occupied Kohli for over a decade, nor render a fresh perspective on steel. While it is laudable that artists are willing to experiment and ‘The Stainless’ has become representative of such endeavour, experiments such as these, when presented as art, do not succeed.

Design and Art have long been separated by the notion that design is for the masses and art is unique and precious. Mekhala Bahl still holds this view, even though she works with textiles, which are integral to our daily living and its design vocabulary. Bahl is a sensitive artist who is however not making any overt social statements, she speaks of an inner state with clarity of its confusion and it is this honesty that endears. For her, working with textiles commenced as a convenience, allowing her to make large-scale prints and she tentatively explores its further potential in ‘The Geometry of Error’ [Gallery Espace].  Based in a studio atop a textile fabrication unit in Gurgaon, Mekhala is well placed to do this, but to understand the medium, I think it would be instructive to work with one’s own hands. This proximity with the medium, lends an intimacy which allows the fabric to reveals itself to you in ways that cannot be comprehended with the industrial distance of delegating in a factory environment. The work on paper is far more sensitive in its portrayal of her ideas than the mechanically quilted fabric.



Archana Hande

Mumbai based Archana Hande is also a print maker who has worked on Textiles [Nature Morte Annex – ‘All is fair in Magic White’]. Here she exhibits rebus like pictures made with the traditional method of block-printing on fabric. Hande attempts a satirical account of a dirty, over-populated Mumbai aspiring to become a global mega polis of the future, The works revolve around a story of three friends who initiate a ‘Clean Mumbai’ campaign, abandon it upon seeing a report on Dharavi to “help the government of India turn Mumbai into Shanghai one day” but end up launching a product which “makes the skin white.” Her commentary lacks authenticity, for Hande appears to disassociate herself from the women, when by virtue of her physical and cultural location; she is also part of the psyche that moulded them. In distancing rather than immersing herself in the complexity of the post-colonial predicament, she is unable to present an insightful view. The textile block prints are accompanied by a digital film. It is interesting to see this diversification in media but the Hande does not exhibit an affinity with textiles nor does the medium add a relevant dimension to her presentation.

In Vistaar II curated by Peter Nagy; Manisha Parekh, N. Pushpmala, Reena Kallat and others, create products where ‘art’ is invited to engage with ‘design’. Ideally design will emerge as an essence of the experience tabulated through art. Pushpmala however, does not allow scope for this but imprints/transfers a selection of photographs by printing them directly onto dinner plates, rather than extracting the essential aesthetic of her photographed experience and applying this as a design for fine dining. Reena Kallat’s table in two parts is arresting but her inability to exercise discretion with regard to the quantum and variety of its legs diminishes the calibre of the product designed. There are also too many lines etched upon the surface, detracting from its contour which is the most creative element.



Pankaj and Nidhi

To see a good marriage of art and design, one should look at the work of fashion designers show-cased at India fashion weeks. These designers are veterans of the commercial world that will not entertain such careless lapses. The artist in them is indulged, but the product is ruthlessly edited and the final result is a true engagement of art and design where the experience is examined with depth and its essence portrayed with finesse.

Gunjun Gupta’s concept of using the bicycle to create a chair is innovative. She began work on this with a design company in Amsterdam, where cycles are integral to contemporary urban life. Her design/product evolves from a very gawky, one-cycle-seat apparition to this rather sophisticated base, using multiple seats. She further incorporates the idea that cycles in parts of India are used to ferry masses of stuff, way beyond the norms of decency. She presents it too literally, making a statement that conforms to the present trend of incorporating concepts used in small town/rural India, which is getting a lot of attention abroad; but the disconnect between the aesthetics that govern the design of the base and that of the back-rest, make  the chairs look visually awkward.



Gunjan Gupta

Manisha Parekh’s attempt at making bean bags was disappointing. The numerous bags with faux leather ribbons and other similar lines and fronds extending randomly from a basically traditional bean bag, seemed an irrelevant endeavour. Parekh is an artist who has so far not taken part in the theatrics that surround the art-making world. Her earlier work has evolved forms using jute wrappings that would have been well suited to making unusual bean bags, but she says her product-partner was unable to give the requisite production support. This highlights issues that are ignored when such exhibitions are planned where it seems to be more about innovation at a peripheral level, rather than a considered project where all facilities are well thought out and provided for. The bringing together of art and design is not a new idea. It is indeed relevant towards forging a new and authentic vocabulary of Indian design, and needs to be carefully considered.



Chitrovanu Mazumdar

Material abundance and our dependence upon ‘things’ has possibly created an environment where we have more relationships with the things around us than people and therefore the objectification presented  in  ‘Re-claim/Re-cite/Re-cycle’, curated by Bhavna Kakar was pertinent. Prajjwal Choudhury generates interest with printed match boxes; simmering in a cauldron or passing inanely through a mechanical assembly line to represent the way we re-cycle icons and ideas. The irony and humour in Manujnath Kamath’s digital print of ‘Paneer Pizza’ was noted; but it was Chittrovanu Mazumdar’s ‘Ice-cream factory, Chill tubes and a Love Song’ that drew all ears. The idea of re-cycling refrigerator pipes to re-create them as a complex trumpet-like instrument was novel indeed, but the instrument was mute and sound played through massive speakers behind the ‘Chill tubes’, defeating the purpose of such an exercise. In this age of advanced technology it would require a simple engineering solution to get the re-constructed ‘Chill tubes’ to sing.  Lacking that one extra degree of perspiration the potential for excellence remained at the level of mediocre.

This attitude sums up much of what is being shown as art, where it is inspired but lacks the commitment; where the distinction between art and design is not diminishing but the integrity of creative representation is being replaced by the novelty of innovative ideas. Is this then a re-definition of Art - the change we’re in the process of initiating?

In Conversation [ Essay] Bridging the divide between Art and Design

The Tsunami in Indonesia and Sri Lanka by Amrita Das

Art making is no longer just about paint and canvas or watercolours. It encompasses variety of media from canvas to steel, glass and photographs to digital art, pottery, textiles and jewellery. The whole gamut of human experience, invention and endeavour is a medium of expression for the artists of this millennium.

This diversity may compound the viewing process, but ideals of art keep the gaze affixed, generating greater interest among the business community, than ever before. Today, art is a viable instrument of investment. It no longer has much esoteric value, yet its intangible, deviant voice is complex to decipher.

How does one look at works of art; unravel their complexities? For me the question is not about art for art's sake but, about understanding art from the point of view of the human being that created it. Fundamentally, art making is just another form of human expression. Then logically, understanding and appreciating art is quite simply about recognizing the human state that creates it. Can you truly divorce the human being from his art?

When I interviewed the artist Satish Gujral, I went with a million questions and some reservations. There were many incongruities in his work, which I could not reconcile. To understand its diversity and contradictions, it is not art history that one turns to but one’s humanity. It was in meeting the man, rather than the artist, that I found some answers.

We see a young and emotional Gujral in the brutal, anguished strokes that define his harrowing portraits of Partition. He concedes the story of Partition was evocative of personal anguish; that the horror and violence he portrayed, exorcised some of the disbelief and horror of losing his hearing at the age of eight. The stark reality of this enforced silence was “terrible” and subsequently shaped his whole being. Painting became a means to substantiate his existence, for he says, “What proof you have, when you cannot hear the sounds around you that you really exist?”

Gujral has worked in many media from painting on canvas and paper

collages to some outstanding work in wood and an architectural masterpiece, in The Belgian Embassy in New Delhi. Each phase of work is complete in itself, not an adjunct to other media. This is disconcerting if looked at from a narrow, orthodox perspective. However, seeing it from this artist’s viewpoint of being inside a train in transition, where the constant changes allowed him to ‘break’ the otherwise stifling silence; one realizes that we take much for granted in our stereotyped expectations of artists and their creative endeavour, losing track of the human being. How, when, where and why do we separate the artist from the man?

Sandeep Singh

Photography is no different to a painting when it comes to seeing, for it reveals as much or as little as you are able to see. Sandeep Singh’s photographs draw you into their silence. He achieves this by the sheer starkness of imagery that precludes any kind of human life or suggestion thereof, beyond what we can imagine or ferret from memory. You find a large playing field with a football in the foreground, but not a player in sight. There are empty benches and spaces made for human living but not a soul around. It is positively eerie to see endless empty roads; a market devoid of any human activity; or Terminal 4 at Heathrow, one of the busiest airports in the world, with not a sign of human life. You think life on earth abandoned, and ask why?  Why has this neat, orderly, technologically progressive world been abandoned by the beings that created it?

Sandeep Singh

The photographer intentionally seeks to separate man from his grounds, presenting modern design without its encumbrance. It is his attempt to find silence in these urban-scapes, away from the “pandemonium of post-modernity”. Singh believes that the basic premise of the post-modern world, built upon questions deconstructing existing paradigms of myth and reality; creates extreme anxiety in the human mind, causing us to run away from ourselves, fragmenting the wholeness of being.

Lines, contours, geometric patterns, vertical and horizontal lines, constitute the many elements that form each picture. There is no singular point of interest but the scape is stark nonetheless, because of the elimination of human forms. When I first saw the images, it was like a breath of fresh air - a haven away from the crowded, cacophonic spaces in India. The more I looked, the more the stillness spoke through its depths,  of a  silence not always restful, but tormenting; not empty but bursting to tell its story – your story and mine; for isn’t reality  a question of perception?

Satish Gujral with Alpana Gujral for Vistaar

Art is inseparable from the man, his emotions and quests. Satish Gujral further authenticates this when he says, “artists are not men of ideas; they are men of feeling”. Their responses to the world, governed by feelings of joy, inadequacy, pain and more is what they express as they paint, sculpt or design. Gujral recently worked with his daughter Alpana to design precious jewellery. Painter Thota Vaikuntam, joined hands with Hyderabad based designer Suhani Pittie to create unique necklaces - adornment for the body, as opposed to walls; while yet another painter, Bose Krishnamachari collaborated with Ezma to create a woven shawl masterpiece in Cashmere. These and the work of many other artists were on display at Vistaar, a recent exhibition of collaborative art held in New Delhi.

The emergence of new media, including a renewed interest in the old, poses a challenge to painters of canvas. In addition, Design and craft are gaining considerable significance as modes of creative expression, making the ‘variety’ awesome and seductive but the painter Mona Rai is not enamoured. She works stoically on the conventional canvas. While her choice of materials does not necessarily define her as a paints’ painter, you cannot question her use of canvas or materials she employs on this. Fabric plays an important role in Mona’s vocabulary, as do its processes and techniques.  She ‘dyes’ the fabric. She sews it.  She uses glitter, beads, buttons, mirrors and threads, but works essentially as a painter and not as a  Fiber Artist.

She does not revel in the making and use of fabric and its fibre, as the latter would, however she uses particularly, the same kind of materials to express specifically, her transition from conventional painting on canvas towards this newer dimension. Rai is a collector of the mundane and the useless. In her studio, she has accumulated a variety of bottle caps, coins, cutters, pencils and discarded washers, along with mud and sand as well as sequins, beads, glitter, powder colour and much more. Although inspired by materials associated with the world of textiles, fabric is merely the medium, not the essence of her expression. This allows a certain irreverence in the handling of the material that makes the eventual ‘canvas’ visceral, violent and macabre, imbuing it with a sense of repulsion which is often what attracts Mona’s attention to many aspects of life.

Madhubani Painting

At the other end of the spectrum of artistic expression, is Folk art. Largely identified with rural life, this is both a personal and cultural statement of expression. Anyone in the community is entitled to and able to create. It is an art form based on close observations of Indian life, precluding any reference to Western Art. Within an extraordinary mix of the ancient with the modern, folk artists record everyday events of family and community life. Using colour and lyrical elements of line, they express through a visual language that employs simplified form, ignoring perspective and proportion.

Much written about, the work of artist Madhavi Parekh cites her art as vital to reconciling the expressions of rural India with that of modern, urban India. Being a first generation migrant to urbanization, enables her to draw upon images, events, sounds and scapes etched in her memories of village life. Untrained in the formal mode of Art education she uses a kind of naïve, ‘folk’ narrative to tell her stories. 

Madhavi Parekh

 Modern, urban India, divested of the romance of an ethnic identity is keen to reclaim its heritage by iterating the importance of an infusion of folk elements in the Contemporary Art vocabulary. However, for the rural artists, whose folk idiom is not merely a memory, but a living discipline they naturally work within, categorizing their work as ‘folk’ is derogatory. This dichotomy intrigues and questions the positioning of our folk heritage vis-à-vis contemporary painting, because we do not regard the work of these rural artists in the same way as that of the modern-urbanized painter. Their brilliance seems eclipsed by the recognition accorded to artists such as Parekh for an innovative stance afforded by her changed environment. The fundamental reality of evaluating creativity in terms of visibility and therefore recognition, poses questions about deemed appropriate values. Yet the co-existence speaks of the vibrancy of a culture, lending equal voice to the other

Manisha Bhattacharya

Drawing from the depths of tradition, beyond the realm of folk iconography are studio potters like Manisha Bhattacharya, who transcend restrictive qualities of pottery. She does not define herself merely as a potter, nor does she see herself as a designer; but considers her work  more in the realm  as that of an artist-craftsman. Although not bound by pottery conventions even though her work does not necessarily break free of them either, she is a self-confessed ‘addict’ of working on the wheel. The vessel forms the basis of most of the objects she creates, but the surface of each vessel is akin to canvas. Working primarily in black and white, she manipulates the smoke on her pots, as a painter wields his brush, using the Raku technique of glazing.

At one level, a potter is a potter, so what sets Manisha Bhattacharya apart from the local kumhar? Is it her education? Is it her world exposure? Is it the challenge of our times? Can Manisha and other contemporary potters really provide an alternative to the local kumhar or has the indigenous tradition of pottery making undergone such a sea of change that we cannot turn the wheel to recast that mould? 

 

Is it just the tradition of pottery recast to deem a plate more than a mere platter to eat from, or is it an evolution of the aesthetics of contemporary society? With the growing interest in collaborative ventures between art and design and diversity in media of expression, we seem to aspire towards a life that celebrates each dimension of living, imbuing the functionality of the mundane with the expansiveness of the spirit. Art in ancient India was not a profession or an activity divorced from other spheres of living. It was a way of life that nourished the man “corpus anima et spiritus” The advent of machines has challenged this concept, but the aesthetic ideals of contemporary art seem to re-direct us towards this  holistic tradition.

Manisha Bhattacharya