Husain Aur Husain Ke Baad

Book Review

Book Cover:
Husain Aur Husain Ke Baad
Author:
Vinod Bhardwaj
Publisher:
Anurag Publication,
New Delhi
Year:
2012
Price:
Rs. 400/-

'India's Picasso dies in exile'-screamed the news headlines. So was the case of the facebook status updates on 10th June 2011. M.F.Husain had passed away in exile. It was exactly the point where art critic and writer; Vinod Bhardwaj starts his recent book titled 'Husain aur Husain ke Baad' published by Anurag Publication, New Delhi. A day before, on 9th June, we had lost a gem of art world, veteran artist M.F.Husain at the age of 95. We qualify him as Indian Picasso and deny what is due to him, and Vinod Bhardwaj minces no words to say this. This book has a lot of original views on the recent developments in the Indian contemporary art and its history.

Written in Hindi, this book is a compilation of various articles written by the author on different occasions and he present the book as a tribute to the departed master, M.F.Husain. Bhardwaj narrates his last nostalgic meet with Husain during his journey to London in July-August 2010 and numerous previous meetings with the artist. The book starts from Husain's life, peeping into his art and how the stoical and pensive memory of Husain makes iconic symbols in his art like lanterns, bicycles, horses and also his obsession with women/film actresses. The author reads Husain's life within the historical context of the Bombay Progressives comprised of Souza, Raza, Bakre, Ara and Gade.

The author criticizes the sectarians' repugnance over Husain's art which compelled him to take refuge and later citizenship in/of Qatar and laments over his inability in returning to India even during his last days. From here he moves on to other artists of the country including modernists, senior artists, eminent contemporaries, young practicing artists; their art, their thought processes in connection with latest events happened during the last two-three years. He divides the time frame of the book, as the title suggests, during and after Husain.

Citing the economic hierarchies, art trends and publicity stunts present and evolved throughout our modernist times, Bhardwaj touches upon the milieu of our modern art scene with an insider's intellectual verve and emotional attachment. The entire book seems to be a vigilant study of the condition of Indian art and art market from modern period till present. In due course of his narrative, the author mentions his innumerable trips to abroad in order to see the international modern art and gain firsthand experience of it.

Bhardwaj is an art insider and his writings are informed by firsthand experience with the artists. He visits artists in their studios and chats up with the new artists during the exhibitions and forms an idea about the ongoing trends and art movements. Through this close association with the artists, he gets to see how glamorous the art world has become in the recent years and without much cynicism he raises points of dissension. His critique traverses into the areas of politics where the production of visual icons is an integral part of proliferating political ideologies. To exemplify this he brings in a detailed reading of Mayawati's efforts to erect the statues of the Dalit leaders in Uttar Pradesh.

Bhardwaj feels that there are many artists who are international celebrities but are not celebrated in India, their motherland. He substantiates his points by discussing the works and stature of the artists like Anup Kumar Chand, Rameshwar Singh, Vinay Sharma, Meena Baya, Sujata Bajaj, Om Prakash Sharma, Ved Nayar, Shuvaprasanna, Jangarh Singh Shyam, Narendra Pal Singh, Siddartha etc. A few among them are more connected to folk and regional art. They are not fame crazy and prefer to work in seclusion and their primary need is to express themselves through their respective works of art.

I would recommend this book not only for the art lovers but also for the artists themselves. Written in lucid language, one could finish reading it in a single sitting. Such books are to be welcomed not only to proliferate the ideas about art but also to demystify the belief pattern that art historical writing or chronicling could only be written in English. We need more such books in Hindi and in regional languages. 

Originally published in Art&Deal Magazine, Issue 47/Vol.8 No.17/Mar-Apr,2012.

Creating Silence Out Of Noise: On Saba Hasan's Works

Review

The pioneer of Abstract Art, Wassily Kandinsky gives us a manifesto of abstract art titled ‘Concerning Spiritual in Art’ and reading this is a blissful delight.  Perhaps it is not about spirituality only, but about a dual effect that one has after seeing an abstract work. One is the physical form and another is the effect created out of process, form or style which provokes an inner resonance.

This state of ‘Spirituality’ and ‘Duality’ rings in me again, when I stepped into the solo showcasing of ‘Mixed media works’ by one of the significant Delhi based abstract artist, Saba Hasan at Gallery Art Konsult, Hauz Khas Village, New Delhi. The collection consists of relief paintings, installations and book objects, a result of last five years of work, which stems from the technique/process that the artist has developed towards her unique visual vocabulary.

Nine book installation, Variable, Mixed media 

Saba has always been experimental in her approach towards mediums, materials, forms and the process of experimenting itself. One of the discoveries in her art lies in the ‘materials’ she uses; as plaster, clay, cement, soot, nails, ropes, jute, leaves, shells, pebbles, templates, dried grass, paper pulp, scripts, gunny fragments, books, boxes etc. are tangible, palpable and organic. After the materials, the other special feature is her intention of using them into works as she says, ‘I continue to touch upon the possibilities which often transcend our cognitive powers and leave us uncertain for multiple interpretations, yet doubtful of the real meaning, often tentative and even afraid’. This is somewhat an invitation to the viewers to inter into each work by leaving space for their own interpretations so that a feel of infinity has created, which has always been a pivotal point of ‘Spirituality’, an essence of Abstraction and abstract art. 

In Abstraction, artistic creation comprises a set of processes, which relate to the activity of the artist and spectator at once. Artistic processes are meditated experiences that opens up the world, thus success of a work of art lies in reality beyond the actual reality; it suggest an unknown world using the means and signs of the known world. And means of creation develops towards the changing time and tools which brings change in form also. Artist and viewer follow these various processes of abstraction at different levels, in the definition of means of creation, representation and perception. All these, one may view in conjunction of Saba’s mix medias where each work says of painstakingly achieved layers with binding agents those have been allowed to dry naturally, revealing cracks, wrinkles and bubbles. Material is kneaded, mixed and molded onto surface of canvas which later on exposed to the sun and rain for natural drying, weathering etc. In a few canvases surface is given to brown and grey stains created out of natural materials like tea and soot for giving depth or a sense of age. Books are wrapped, fossilized, dipped out, burnt, cut up, tied up, petrified, locked away and some embalmed for posterity.

Mystical Storm, Mix media on canvas

The undulating surfaces of canvas or even of book objects resemble geological formations as if artist is trying to map the connection of body, mind and soul. Text has been used both as ‘material’ in the form of torn strips and as a ‘image’ when they are inscribed on surface, but in both ways it seems embedded in knowledge of ‘world’ and ‘word’, a repository of history and lived traditions. Use of English goes until Urdu that opens Saba’s own personal diary which is not an attempt to collapse borders but endeavor to speak from the heart of an insider.

Inspiration for Abstraction to Saba comes from leading Abstract Artists like J. Swaminathan who has taken a lead role in forming one of major school of Abstraction in India, Somnath Hore and Mark Rothko to name a few. She relates to Swaminathan’s celebration of freedom, Hore’s simplicity that reaches to the core of feelings and Rothko’s obsession with death. Stories by Mahashweta Devi, poems by revolutionary Faiz, Galib and songs by Bob Dylan are other sources.

Saba immerses herself deeply with a single thought that can communicate to her canvas/work in a different way which makes her art like meditation. It seems to construct a universe beyond the concrete, voluminous or tetrahedron. It oscillates between the ‘freedom’ and ‘parochialism’ both, elevating and embellishing its account by taking from each.  For instance, books those are tied up and kept in the boxes, open themselves for various means by moderation. And that is what opens immense possibilities dwell upon dualities, here it comes back to the notion of ‘Spirituality’ and ‘Duality’, that I have mentioned in the beginning, with which one can trace upon various aspects of Saba’s works. 

Book of Disquiet, Mix media

As Saba observes, both the worlds, ‘within’ and ‘without’ try to bring an emotive visceral response rather than an objective view of reality which simultaneously captures inside and outside. The process of creation also incorporates ‘spontaneity’ within ‘deliberation’ by use of ‘image’ and ‘text’ both as contrary and adscititious which doesn’t reveal the intention of ‘juxtaposition’. For example as a material nails could be metaphor of some gossamer yet deep delved feel as pain, violence and construction and using them within impasto kind of treatment with colors are merely creating ‘a book of disquiet’. Here tactility of material is prevalent still it seems to have a voice which is like expecting absence out of presence, expressing serenity out of strained city life and creating silence out of noise.

Image Courtesy: Gallery Art Konsult

Originally published in Art&Deal Magazine, Issue 47/vol.8 No.17/Mar-Apr, 2012

Narratives of the Self: Autobiography

Review

Autobiographies need not necessarily be written in words. For an artist it could be a sketchbook; carefully created and categorized. In a group show at the Gallery Espace, New Delhi, autobiography becomes a point of departure for the participating artists. Nisha Aggarwal reviews their self narratives:

'Are Wah yeh to kavita ban gayi...'

Autobiography is known as a book about the life of a person, written by that person. This present sense of the word traces its history around the time of 18th century English writer Robert Southey, where it was closely related to the word 'memoir'. Thus autobiography perhaps is based entirely on the writer's memory. In antiquity it has passed through various names as apologia, oration and confession. But we must assert that all these are essential components of autobiography even with addition of dualities like imagination and reality, movement and stillness and of past and present.

A sense of autobiographical understanding rings in me throughout the visit at Gallery Espace, New Friends Colony, New Delhi; where a group show of 20 artists including Indian modernists and contemporary talents have opened up their personal diaries to the public under the title of 'Narratives of the self: Autobiography'.

The show is on view from January 27, 2012 to February 27, 2012 with works of artists Amit Ambalal, Anju Dodiya, Chintan Upadhyay, J. Swaminathan, Jitish Kallat, Jyoti Bhatt, Kim Kyoungae, M. F. Husain, Madhvi Parekh, Manisha Gera Baswani, Manjunath Kamath, Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur, Mithu Sen, Nilima Sheikh, Paula Sengupta, Rekha Rodwittiya, Samit Das, Sarnath Banerjee, Somnath Banerjee, Somnath Hore and Sutapa Biswas.

All these artists are invited to form personal histories that have remained embedded in their subconscious mind, few of these not among us now; their works have also been included under the same aspect. Personal history is a childhood memory for some, where for others it's a grandmother's tale, for few a repository, a travelogue or a documentary and collection of all these has presented here in the form of exhibition. Each of these artists has drawn out his/her story with selective instances, incidents, emotions and reflections within their visual language and stylistic discourse. A range of ideas, expressions have come to see interwoven with memories and their impression, thus spread out and successfully articulate the journey of each representative artist.

J. Swaminathan's text book 'Is disha se us disha tak' a collection of seventeen Hindi poems written by eminent poets of Hindi literature such as Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh, Bhavani Prasad Mishra, Trilochan, Shamsher Bahadur Singh, Nagarjun, Kedarnath Aggarwal, Naresh Mehta, Vijay Dev Narayan, Raghuveer Sahay, Kedarnath Singh, Shrikant Verma, Malyaj, Dhoomil, Vinod Kumar Shukla and Kamlesh came first to watch. Swaminathan, an artist and being a poet his love towards Hindi poetry had perhaps led him to collect these poems which seem to be singing the victory verses of 'Kavita' and showing their strength in 'Death of Kavita & Hindi'. While all the other artists have contributed their picture books, this lone text based work significantly stands out and makes the viewer 'read' while they 'see' it.

Nilima Sheikh takes us to her past; the time of her stay at home, being a child bathed in a veranda by her mother and sudden visits of monkeys at her home, the days she used to enjoy the flights of blue butterflies and those serene nights. She is enjoying them again by her soft and simple approach of creating brush drawings on handmade paper as she herself asserts, 'I have tried to trail my fingers on the light of the past.' Similarly Amit Ambalal and Madhvi Parekh also trace their childhood memories of being accompanied with grandparents and their stay at villages and other places mostly associated with myths and faith connected to religious and ritualistic practices of their respective places.

Work by M.F.Husain

Our old sketch books and photographs hold the reflections of an intimate world that brings its account of opportunities to live it again, that holds both dreams and realities of someone's existence, sometimes they become a very special site of documentation that holds the essence of poetic energy of the time. This view is applicable to the works of Kim Kyoungae, Somnath Hore, M. F. Husain, Jyoti Bhatt, Sutapa Biswas, Rekha Rodwittiya and also Paula Sengupta.

Kim's and Somnath Hore's sketchbooks opens up like a metaphor that alludes to the overlaps of time whereas Jyoti Bhatt reviews and redraws his drawings which he did during his mischief travel to Italy; the memory he brings within the title of his work written in French as 'Disegni Nostalgichi Di L'italia'. Sutapa Biswas's presented work relates to a period in her life, shortly after the birth of her son in 2000. Rekha Rodwittiya shares her old images clicked by herself when she was given a camera as a child and Paula Sengupta opens up her diary which she started in 2009 and began to turn its pages again in 2011 which hold the key to much of her works done between 2008-11. She invites the viewer to get a comfortable stay with her memories and to get attached to them as she offers a chair to sit and a table lamp put centered to diary reveals her intention, similarly Samit Das presenting his work, 'Fragments from emotional memory' didn't forget to put a note on the display table saying 'Please feel free to touch.' And Sarnath Banerjee puts a video of the making of his drawings of 'School of physical culture', so the viewer may easily connect to them.

Paula Sengupta, 'Mulling the Intimate'

Samit Das, 'Fragments from emotional memory'

But opposed to it Mithu Sen left her sketch book not made known or revealed, it is left alone to live with privacy and dignity entitled 'Shut up'. Anju Dodiya feels an autobiography as a travelogue where one notes micro-changes of skin, self and location as she portrays the self with stained images which themselves tell of her own suffering of skin stains. Manisha Gera Baswani cuts images waving in her mind through a maze like overgrown forest, which are jumping from one frame to another crossing the boundaries, liquid orbs are moving onto the whole space creating a rhythm of poetry. Similarly linear drawing of Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur made with pen on paper give a stance of the artist's psyche while he created this spontaneous continuous line filling the whole space. It gives a poetic feel of floating on the waves of an ocean or of a flying bird in an open sky without any control.

Mithu Sen, 'Shut up'

Jitish Kallat, Manjunath Kamath and Chintan Upadhyay leave the strongest impact on the mind where the impression of their personal memory is not as washy as it enters inside through the senses. Jitish Kallat's 'Afterword' presents versions of a disappearing act through his paper drawings. Manjunath Kamath with his inherent innocent approach entertains the viewers as usual. One can discover humor, satire and the logic of juxtaposing objects/dualities in his 'Customized Autobiography.' Chintan Upadhyay spreads out the pages of his diary framed within his mental conflicts in 'Chintu aHead of time' where a 'Head' of chintu tells its story of 'Ahead'. Each page of the diary having a different color seems a metaphor of some different emotion raised in the artist's heart and eagerness to tell the story of Chintan's own where his baby 'Chintu' also seems a metaphor in himself. The daily struggles of the mind born out of changing values of time and relationships but still showcasing the strength over situations has given 'flying tears' to Chintan's babies and another small diary entitled 'Shit happens' which narrates the movements/conflicts of a stone and its shadow also a touching story which says all inherent emotions within a single line, 'Yes I am a stone, you too are stone.'

Jitish Kallat, 'Afterword'

Manjunath Kamath, 'Customized Autobiography'

Chintan Upadhyay, 'Chintu aHead of time'

As to say as a overall impact, each of these artists has contributed their story books either in form of 'picture' or 'text' which takes the viewers into their personal lives. And the collection of these in form of this show not less than a museum, as Walter Benjamin's words here echo in memory that 'Personal collections create history and cultural museums create discourse.' But we can perhaps understand this show both as history and discourse as it is compiled of diversities of culture, experience and emotion. Each artist has played out like the verse of a poem where they create a rhythm like that of poetry in a compiled form and I would love to give them together words of Chintan Upadhyay, as he writes in one of his diary page, 'Are wah yeh to kavita ban gayi...'...

Image Courtesy: Gallery Espace

Originally published in Art&Deal Magazine, Issue45/Vol.8 No.15/Jan-Feb,2012

Eco-friendly Hornification: 'Pulling The Horns Of Cultural Devil'

Review

During the 1960s, American artists realized the tremendous possibilities of their everyday surroundings in the creation of new subject matter, and the result was generally a bolder and more aggressive art than that of their European counterparts, much of whose works are derived from American motion pictures, popular idols, comic strips, or signboards. And one of the most important figures in the establishment of that time's Pop's vocabulary, Robert Rauchenberg once said,'if I was going to survive, I had to appreciate the most common aspects of life.'

And today when all this has grounded into developmental process of art and art history, doing painting is perhaps finding new dimensions within the limits of two-dimensional surface. This limited character of painting tells us the story of its 'survival' which had much pointed out to 'the death of painting'. So, often it synthesizes an amalgam of influences from present culture as well from previous art movements. And to make paintings today is a bold and revolutionary act too; which snubs one's nose at the 'progressive' march of art history by taking the insidious computer and digital technologies also.

In this context the new paintings of a pair of brothers Manil Gupta and Rohit Gupta working collaboratively, exhibited under the title 'Eco-friendly Hornification' at Stainless Art Gallery, New Delhi, from December 1 to December 8, 2011 presented by Seven Art Limited in collaboration with Nature Morte was a sincere effort to relish the human predicament in a humorous way.

ManilRohit at Stainless Art Gallery

Manil (born 1978)and Rohit (born 1985)Gupta were raised in Lucknow and moved to Delhi in 1998. Manil received a BFA degree in Applied Art from Delhi College of Art in 2003 and worked independently as an artist for a number of years, having two solo exhibitions of his work at the Palette Art Gallery in New Delhi. Rohit earned a BA in English from Delhi University in 2006 and is a self-taught artist and photographer. The brothers started their collaborative work in 2011.

As a collaborative effort of Manil & Rohit 'Eco-friendly Hornification' produced images which have derived from popular culture, popular media as graffiti, comics and animation and built their conceptual branches by attempting satire on it. So, Humor is seen as a fore-grounded dialogue where one can speculate of discovering the ring of sarcasm as well. As Manil once said about the inspiration behind his paintings,'Life is absurd, silly and funny. There is violence and tragedy too. All we can do is addition of some humor to it.'

While this attempt within the paintings of Manil & Rohit is aggressive and ribald, it has again brought the American Pop Vocabulary with its contemporary pop icons. The difference here is seen in their approach of taking these popular icons. While earlier they had taken to popularize the popular for making their art popular; here popular has been taken for commenting on the popular. Art historical references are prevalent in some other aspects also; as they successfully conquer the age-old battles between figure and ground, abstraction and figuration.

Ecofriendly Hornification Cells, Acrylic on canvas, 6 x 6 ft

Still Life, Acrylic on canvas, 6 x 6 ft

All these aspects could also be traced in the philosophy of Theodor Adorno. Adorno saw the cultural industry as an arena in which critical tendencies or potentialities were eliminated. For him popular culture was identified as a reason why people became passive; in fact it makes people passive because it supports the ongoing system and blocks the critical faculty against it. The easy pleasures available through consumption of popular culture made people docile and content, no matter how terrible their economic circumstances. The similar nature of pop icons can be traced over the imagery of Manil & Rohit, but contradictory stance here in the intention of artists becomes evident while putting pop imagery into works. They are mocking on the ongoing system and trying to make viewers aware of themselves by attempting to bring people and their cultural identity out of passiveness. Adorno's work focused on art, literature and music as key areas of sensual, indirect critique of the established culture and modes of thought, there was also a strand of distinctly political 'utopianism', which also has been a visited area of Manil & Rohit here.

Utopia (Dyptich), Acrylic on canvas, 72" x 72" (each) 

The iconography of images seems sourced from children's comic illustrations and there is use of vibrant and bright yet soft hues of colors generally used for children's stuff keeping their liking and comfort in mind to attract them. Perhaps the artists wanted to create a fantastic imaginative land by the use of fluorescents mingled with metallics, where the viewers would enter with their childlike innocence and who knows later will delve into the inherent serious satire of it. The images giving the stance of caricature kind of figures, introduces texts into their bodies by using thought bubbles and speech blurbs. Text also has been taken from popular attractive culture; for instance use of 'what's on your mind' indicates to facebook status updates & relates to inherent political ambiguity as well, which again talks of Popular & Political (humorous satire).

Where Are You, Acrylic on canvas, 6 x 6 ft

The painterly endeavors are skillful and enough to be expressive to convey and communicate with viewer as they employ to make line, form and shape with highly charged fields of energy and each image seems echoing the adolescent narcissism in collaboration with one another which lies at the heart of culture. In few of canvases the soft-focus blur of aerosol paint in the background is juxtaposed with an impasto treatment in foreground images. Each canvas is full of images, icons and signs to create an overwhelming impact and thus providing an opportunity to enter into a specific crowded situation where one would lost himself/herself for a while until he/she comes back to enter into another created scenario.

As to say in totality the entire display of works has provided the vigilant study of the whole human situation. The protagonist is perhaps mostly a reflection of artists themselves, but it also tried to make a generalized observation and statement. The issues of the works are based on that of the distancing of human emotions, 'corporatization' of the society leading to an overall sense of increasing human insensitivity. It's about today's consumer-driven society in a mad rush for (short-term) material gains. Both artists have provided to see capitalist effects of our filthy desires for luxury/extravagance and so they came up to make noise by pulling the 'Horns' of its contradictory harsh reality of unequal distribution of resources, which seems enough justification of the title 'Eco-friendly Hornification'.

Image Courtesy: Gallery Seven Art Limited & Artists.

Originally published in Art&Deal Magazine, Issue 45/Vol.8 No.15/Jan-Feb,2012

Happy Deepawali

Today is Deepawali, the festival of lights. There are many stories associated with this day.

It was on this day that the demon Narakasura was killed. King Narakasura-Naraka means hell-had been granted a boon that he could only be destroyed by a woman. Lord Krishna's wife, Satyabhama, was the one to destroy him.

Why could only Satyabhama kill Naraka? Satya means truth and bhama means the beloved. Untruth or lack of love cannot conquer hell. It cannot be removed by aggression. Hell can only be erased by love and surrender. Non-aggression, love and surrender are the inherent qualities of a woman. Hence only Satyabhama, the true beloved, could remove hell and bring the light back. And Narakasura's last wish was that every house should celebrate his demise with lights to mark the end of darkness. This is Deepawali.

It was only today that Lord Rama returned to Ayodhya, his kingdom, after his victory over Ravana, the demon king, Ayodhya means that which cannot be destroyed, or life. Ram means the Atma - the Self. When the Self rules in life, then knowledge lights up. There is life everywhere. But when the spirit is awakened in life, Deepawali Happens. 

Happy Deepawali to All. 

(was reading the book 'Celebrating Love' by H. H. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, liked the words, So, wishing to share them with friends)

Images: All taken at home today on Deepawali.