Centralizing Peripheries

The Women Art Exhibition

The gender roles and the place of women artist has always been a polemic purport in art history. We may recall the ‘ismic’ time period of art which produced a number of great masters and also the ‘pre-ismic/renaissance’ and ‘post-ismic’ which we call today modern period. Our art history is evident enough to confabulate that ‘great’ art has produced by men artists only who earned the fame and name. The women were not inferior in potential and caliber but it was the lack of equal opportunities enjoyed by men and wasn’t availed to women. Women artists were ‘lone individuals’ whose creations were not socially explicable, and there were naturally fixed male and female ‘spheres of activity’ in public and private life that precluded women from any important role in production of art.

In late nineteenth century a movement called ‘feminism’ came into light which hoisted the curtains from the dark past of women’s lives. It became a revolutionary movement in field of arts also from where a number of women artists, writers and activists came forward to take charge for bringing women’s identity into active center from passive zones. The first phase of the movement brought the autobiographical interventions into writings and art works. The first feminist Simone de Beauvoir’s treatise ‘the second sex’ argued that ‘one is not born a woman, but becomes one’. This ‘social construction’ of gender roles further explored by Adeline Virginia Woolf in her book-length essay ‘a room of one’s own’ by saying that a woman too needs availability of time, money and space for her own, if she wants to become a great artist/writer apart from her domestic responsibilities. Than Linda Nochlin’s famous assertion was raised in her essay ‘why have there been no great women artists?’ in which her critical attention has been drawn to investigating the ways in which gender affects the creation and apprehension of art.

This was the time when many women artists came into light like Mary Cassatt, Eva Hesse, Lee Krasner, Barbara Kruger, Ana Mendieta, Georgia O’Keeffe, Judy Chicago, Tracey Emin, Carrie Mae Weems to name a few. Apart from this western perspective we may recall the Amrita Shergil’s contribution who is known as a first modern Indian painter. Amrita’s work and personality is compared with Mexican artist Frida Kahlo as both became famous as a revolutionary figures those didn’t ever worried about the ‘line of control’ marked by the society for its female beings by so called traditional conservators. Both these artists made masculine appearances within their feminine identities but they became able to do so because of the way they lived their lives. Whether some other female artists supposed not to dominate ‘their men’s’ identities like Lee Krasner and Elaine de Kooning, wives of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning respectively.

Apart from it the contemporary time of art has brought many female artists into centre of art and art market, though the social mentality towards women has changed a lot now a days. In last some decades, Women artists have shown a diverse range of their creative skills in the field of visual arts. Arpana Caur, Anjolie Ela Menon, Anupam Sud, Shobha Broota, Gogi Saroj Pal, than Nalini Malini, Arpita Singh, Rekha Rodwittiya, Nilima Sheikh, Bharti Kher, Shilpa Gupta, Madhvi Parekh, Anita Dube, Sheba Chhachhi is few names those have significant contribution to art field. Some other names are also considerable like Anju Dodia, Reena Saini Kallat, Sharmila Samant, Sonia Khurana, Vibha Galhotra, Vidya Kamat and many more. And even young ladies are bringing the ‘masculine/tenacious’ subjects and themes into their art like Pooja Iranna takes the architectural and urban milieu to explore her artistic interest.  Here, women’s art is not only the autobiographical stories, executed with soft approach of handwork and embroideries. But she has learned enough to imbibe her docile identical elements into other spheres of society.

Although the present time has evolved a number of young practicing women artists, filling up the almost blank account of our past times, anticipating the better future of female art practices but if we see the percentage of female and male fine arts pursuers in art colleges, in one sense result may found not so satisfactory. The percentage in which female students enrolls into fine art colleges, tops in academics, that number is not seen into current contemporary art practices. The ratio of male practicing artists is more than female practitioners.  The reason may be of finding more ‘financially secured’ options or going back into domestic lives of our ‘traditional’ culture, but need is to bring out the more young feminine energies from hidden or struggling spheres of art world.

And that is the objective of Sahitya Kala Parishad, to organize a Women Art Exhibition which includes 51 artists including Shobha Broota, Gogi Saroj Pal, Arpana Caur, Anupam Sud, Amarjit and Usha Biswas are the names to encourage the young generation. then, Anita Krishali, Chitra Joshi, Deepali Manglik, Indu Tripathy, Ingrid Pitzer, Kavita Jaiswal, Kavita Nayar, Manu Singh, Meena Deora, Neha Talwar, Nira Davar, Nidhi Aggarwal, Nivedita Pandey, Nupur Kundu, Pooja Iranna, Prabha Shah, Promila Arora, Rajnish Kaur, Renuka Sondhi Gulati, Sabia, Shalu Malhotra, Shampa Bhattacharjee, Seema Kohli, Shelly Jyoti, Shruti Chandra Gupta, Surinder Kaur, Yuriko Endo Lochan, Vasundhara Tewari, Vijaya Bagai and Vipeksha Gupta, Vijayata Bhamri, those are persistently working since last 30-10 years in art field.  Having them in exhibition is like to pay honor to all Indian women artists for their active and considerable contribution towards Indian art scene in its historical and contemporary context. As it was the perseverance of many known and unknown women artists which established a progressive mindset towards the women’s creativity in art scene and opened a zone to contest.

While addressing the homage to established names there are women artists those efforts are being recognized, as Sahitya Kala Parishad wishes to provide a larger platform to budding talents of our nation also, so taking up the young artists like Archana Khurana, Anjali Goel, Anushree Jain, Anuja Vashistha, J. Deepa, Gunjan Tyagi, Him Rajani, Pallavi Singh, Megha Madan, Neha Grewal, Nisha Aggarwal, Richa Goel, Rimsy Chopra, Unnati Singh, will make the objectives more meaningful. So, this Women Art Exhibition is a bunch of diverse art practices done by Women Artists coming up from different cultural zones of India throughout their diverse range of styles/languages. As the month of March is considered to have International Women’s Day in it, and we are going to mark the end of the month with Women Art Exhibition at Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, which Sahitya Kala Parishad aims to ‘Centralize’ the ‘Peripheral’ accounts of women’s art practices.

The Catalogue essay of VAMA: Women Art Exhibition by Nisha Aggarwal

Modulating the 'Demotic' & 'Domestic'

A Folk & Tribal Art Workshop 

Folk & Tribal art is produced from an indigenous culture, which is characterized by a naive style. Irrespective of modernity, industrialization or outside 'influences', the nature of folk and tribal art is specific to its particular culture. So, the varied geographical background, temporal prevalence and stylistic diversity are the specialties of the folk and tribal art which may also considered as rural, self-taught, local or pure art.

These arts as a 'term' is product of the colonial reign, where/when the impact of 'museumization' came into effect. Due to this effect the need of 'preservation' of our 'own' cultural identities were recognized. Folk and tribal arts were considered our very own arts, because this artistic practice has carried out by rural people dwelling in 'developing' places of India. They depict their modest and simple lifestyles in vibrant languages, which entail different styles, forms, aesthetics and materials depending on their geographical locations, traditional heritage and regional diversities. 

Folk & tribal art expresses the profound inclination of its creators/artisans towards their culture and nature. Although it is an art form which never enjoyed the feudal aristocratic patronage, but there has always been the penchant perseverance of its artisans towards their patrimonial arts and crafts which worked as an energetic lively force behind it. 

But these arts has always perceived as 'domestic' arts created only for a specific group of people or communities. This restricted underscore has sidelined these arts from the 'developed' notion of 'contemporary'. This division has discernible as more binary oppositions i.e. local, collective, rural, off-stream for folk and tribal arts and international/global, individualistic, urban, main-stream for modern & contemporary art. These binaries are as same as what one descry in the terms of 'illiterate' and 'educated', which usually judged under the western notion of 'intellectualism'. 

These notions of domestic, passive or alienated rather than the 'centralized' figuration of the society, one may concatenate to the status of 'women' as well. Because women too have confronted a discriminative dogma towards its identity as folk and tribal art has envisaged so far. They both are the subject of similar discourse, in the sense that they are born combating a 'masculine' opposite. 

Apart from it there were/are artists who have imbibed the folk and tribal elements and forms while their coadunation with modern and contemporary art. The Cholamandal Artist Village, situated near to Chennai, is one best attempt founded by K. C. S. Paniker, including around twenty resident artists/sculptors who live as a community, pool their skills, also run the Artist’s Handicraft Association and recognized internationally. Artists like S. H. Raza, K. G. Subramanyan, Arpana Caur, A. Ramachandran, Thota Vaikuntam, Laxma Gaud, Madhvi Parekh are to name a few who has contributed in recognizing folk & tribal elements into forefront of contemporary art practices. 

Throughout the last few years the galleries and some other organizations (both from private and government sectors) are coming forward and taking initiative to promote folk and tribal arts which is now venerably known  as 'Vernacular'/'demotic' instead of 'domestic'. But still the exigency of the present is to break down the existing discriminating binaries and to fill the gap between them. And to mark a strive to it, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), New Delhi has decided to provide a wider platform to Indian women folk and tribal artisans and young women art practitioners in collaboration of Sahitya Kala Parishad, New Delhi.

As folk & tribal art in India speaks of varied manifestations including drawing/painting (paper-work or cloth-work), embroidery, designing, weaving and textiles (handlooms), patta-chitras, basket-making, jewelry and toy making (handicrafts), sculpture, pottery, wooden and conch- shell carving, metal work, mask making, kitchen objects, weapons and human body itself (Tattoos and Piercing). These forms of art encompasses the visual expressions of wandering nomads, as it is primarily utilitarian and decorative rather than purely aesthetical (in contrast to fine arts*).

In India all these folk and tribal art forms are widely practised by women artisans. So, on the occasion of World Women’s Day, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), New Delhi, is inviting 46 women artisans from all over India, specialized in their region specific arts and crafts. These women artisans are representing the diverse creativity of India coming from different states. 

Among them 17 women artisans named Sangeeta Bora, Reena Logoi (Assam), Nyayir Riba, Pupi Buchi (Arunachal Pradesh), Nirmala Devi, Urmila Devi Paswan, Sita Devi, Moti Devi, Meera Thakur (Bihar), Lamajei Kamei, Shangkanna Parainei (Manipur), Gouri Bala Das, Allma Khatun, Renu Murmu, Mani Mala Chitrakar, Seema Benarjee, Mangla Nandi (West Bengal) are from Eastern Cultural Zone, 5 women artisans named Manisha Swami (Rajasthan), Sara Ibrahim, Dai Ben Khema, Bharati Ben (Gujarat), Manki Bapu Vaida (Maharashtra) from Western Cultural Zone, 12 artisans named Shafiyano Pawle, Chaiti Netam, Jaimati Coram (Chhattisgarh), Jebunisa, Gaytri Bai, Pavan Singh, Krishna Verma, Manisha Bajaj, Vandana Tiwari, Shanti Bai Marabu, Godawari Soni, Nanhi Bai Marko (Madhya Pradesh) from Central Cultural Zone, 4 artisans named Nazima Khalid (Uttar Pradesh), Pramila Bodh, Dinesh Kumari (Himachal Pradesh), Ritu Sharma (Haryana) are from North Cultural Zone, and 8 artisans named M. Muniratnamma, Suwali Bai Banjara, A. Rama Devi (Andhra Pradesh), Bhavani Natraja, Saraswati Ishwar Nayak (Karnataka), Arphi Begam, Sandhya Rani (Odisha), G. Nagarattham (Tamil Nadu) are representing the South Cultural Zone. 

These Indian women artisans are being accompanied with 11 Delhi based young practicing artists named Anjali Goel, Anjali Sinha, Chetna Verma, Gunjan Tyagi, Him Rajni, Neha Grewal, Nisha Aggarwal, Ranjeeta Kumari, Renu Bariwal, Ritu Manchanda and Sabia, who are directed to imbibe their ongoing/existing visual art styles/language with any of the above artisan’s work as they individually wish to. By this way, various thought processes, languages, and styles would transform their appearances while coming in close connection and interaction with various folk and tribal art forms. We wish this modulating process of mingling up will be resulted in experimental coalesced new art forms, which may generate some new future horizons for folk and tribal arts in contemporary times.