 Mixed fortunes
Posted byadmin on Saturday, January 07 @ 22:36:59 CST
Contributed by Anonymous
While contemporary Indian art becomes solid gold for investment, other arts don’t find many takers
ALKA RAGHUVANSHI
India has always perceived of art as part of a flowing river syndrome - nothing was forever and yet within the ephemeralness there has been the permanence of continuity. This year the perception that art is some kind of a super blue chip investment percolated to the middle classes and the clamouring for art hit an all-time high. All kinds of art found buyers and art for its sake became a thing of the past. The new mantra was art for investment sake. The only people laughing all the way to the bank were artists who suddenly found that whatever they produced had takers! Nevermind that people ended up buying a lot of morbid, disturbing art that they couldn’t live with. Finally contemporary art in India seemed to have come into its own.
But unlike European art where each work even of old masters is assessed and evaluated individually, in India the era of signature art had arrived. Blank canvases of artists were up for sale. The most widely talked about was M F Hussain being commissioned to do a 100 paintings at a mindboggling Rs 100 crore! Even for a prolific artist like Hussain, a 100 paintings are a lot. So was the evaluation? Surely the grand old man of contemporary art couldn’t be expected to churn out a 100 masterpieces which would individually translate into Rs 1 crore each and later get more for its investor. Just the way a Tyeb Mehta sold for Rs 7 crore in resale, meaning that he didn’t get any piece of the action.
Not for a minute is one suggesting that artists should remain entrenched in the garret, or that the starving art syndrome should be a way of life for those in the creative arts, but in the absence of serious art assessment, not all art is or can be blue chip. The have-garage-will-open-art-gallery bug that was earlier true of neighbourhood aunties’ salwar kameez ‘boutique’ seems to have bit the art scene. For the moment it is a game with a lot of big money doing the rounds and it seems fishy that only art coming in for a resale is commanding such high prices, unlike auctions in the last decade where old works of even Hussain, Satish Gujral and Krishan Khanna found no takers. Admittedly its fallout on the artists’ present prices is rather positive, but its long term gains should become clearer in the coming years.
The arena where the whiff of regional aromas is firmly in place is classical Indian dance. Considering Indian classical dances are only about half a century old, this year saw an interesting dimension added to them. Earlier in the year it was Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake being performed in the Mohiniyattam style by Bharati Shivaji’s troupe and towards the end of the year, Madhup Mudgal’s Jai Bharati on the Krishna lore in six of the seven classical forms. The dance forms were knit together interestingly, keeping their styles intact yet exploring the possibility of evolving a sahitya that was easily understood.
Classical dance for too many years has used the bland black backdrop for showcasing itself. Any departure from it is viewed with suspicion. A significant performance from the point of view of stage design for dance was explored by Naresh Kapuria for Shovana Narayan’s kathak presentation. His use of bamboos, net fabric and laser lights created a beautiful setting and an intrinsic part of the dance. Classical dancers would do well to explore new dimensions in terms of both costume and backdrops so that performances are a visual eyeful.
Classical Indian music seemed to be in a limbo. For the generation which has heard Bhimsen Joshi, Ravi Shankar or Bismillah Khan, are yet not ready to completely accept the younger lot, some of whom are doing a superb job of showcasing their brilliant talim like Meeta Pandit and Kaushaki Chakraborty. Both have learnt at the feet of their fathers and gurus Krishna Shankar Pandit and Ajoy Chakraborty respectively and done them proud. The Sarangi festival earlier in the year threw up some excellent young performers.
This year’s ‘old is gold’ award belongs to Pt Rajan and Sajan Mishra who explored an exciting dimension by pairing their performance with Kathak guru Pt Birju Maharaj and tabla wizard Pandit Kishan Maharaj. The performance was an absolute audio-visual treat.
As for theatre, the lack of viable scripts seems to be a major problem. Writing for theatre needs a different kind of expertise and new writers are not forthcoming. The National School of Drama is the only institution that has kept the flag flying high with its Bharat Natya Mahotsav and deserves kudos. But amateur theatre is really on its last legs and yet an activity that needs all the support we can give it.
This year Sangeet Natak Akademi opened its archives to the public by showing some films and other audio-visual presentations. It may not have garnered too much audience, but it is certainly an important step towards sharing their efforts and making even high performing art accessible and their functioning transparent.
The art community came together in a spontaneous manner to generate funds for tsunami victims and other causes as well.
Instead of disasters bringing them together, it would be fantastic if they could come together as a cohesive group to explore and perhaps develop an inter-disciplinary approach to the arts. This would go a long way in creating a pressure group which could function as a support system and pave the way for arts to become self sufficient.
Alka Raghuvansi is an art critic
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