We are destined to create a new movement
 Well known artist Chintan Upadhyaya confronts the controversial artist Sanjeev Khandekar with a volley of questions regarding his ‘censored’ show ‘Clits n Tits n Elephant Dick’. In this interesting interview Khandekar speaks about his life, philosophy and art projects. Excerpts:
Chintan Upadhyaya : Tell me Sanjeev, about your first work of art, when did u do it, why did u do it? And what was It?
Sanjeev Khandekar: Well, I started with water colours, It was a small painting that I did in 1996, I still have it framed and put in my studio, It was a floating army of naked men with their phalluses out and erect, walking on a strange surface of some unknown land of unknown planet, none of them had head, just walking or floating like astronauts, in a weightless condition. All weight that they had was of their genitals. An army of androids with live penises.
CU : You are not a trained artist, how did you find you own language and why did you come to the visual arts?
SK: Art has been my all time passion. I am a writer, poet and I was an activist once upon time. I come from a small place, Sangli, in west Maharashtra. We never had an exposure to new art. In school I used to get bored with painting and craft. I remember however, one of my uncles who used to buy some English journals brought a magazine one day and it had Picasso and his paintings it it. I took it and framed all of them. I have still one of those frames with me, now of course it has lost its colors. Then I started collecting art, some prints and some originals. I was given paints and brush by one of my friends some ten years ago. That was the time I was a little restless and felt that I was blocked. Writing had become difficult and I was going through a bad patch as a creative individual. The world was changing, ideologies crashing, lots of new things were happening around and I was not able to assimilate them. Someone said , try colours, they are cool. And I tried and it worked. It was a big turn on for me. Colours suck you. And they did suck me. I started painting like a mad man. Nights together. You won’t believe it. I painted a few thousands water colours in just three years. I suddenly got the expression that I was looking for.
CU : What was it? I have been following your works for the last ten years and the main element that keeps coming back is sexuality. Please explain it to me.
SK : Yes, you are right. The expression that I was looking for was for the libidinal economy, the market driven lives of individuals, the strange new reality--- the virtual reality, the bio technological take over of all sciences, transgenic existences.. all these issues are important to me, and that too in the context of the new global capitalist scenario.
I wanted some expression, posses and create new space. New deep down, unknown dark space. I realized that our body is the best place to find that new space. Body is not just a body. Body is sexed. It comes with sex imprinted on it. The space that I was searching for was there available then within the libidinal frame of the body.
I was then working with a one of the world’s largest power projects, being constructed by one of the world’s recent notorious multinationals, called Enron. It was my first encounter with libidinal economy of the new and changing world. I started painting my experiences, while painting gave me energy to write again. A few hundred poems I wrote in two years. All my works deal with money, power and sex.
CU: But tell me, why are you so desperate for sexuality? Do you have special attraction towards it, or is it just a theoretical affinity or your expression has any connection with your personal life?
SK : Well , U can box them with all three factors. I like sex. Personally I feel it is the most important factor that governs our history of civilization. Oppressing the male desire to have more we continued to discipline our social life. Now we are in new realm of unleashing it, it is then bound to unwind some new energies and new equations. (Slavoj) Zizek rightly says that, ‘Today's sexuality is under the sign of the superego command to enjoy’ ‘- superego designates the point at which permitted pleasure turns into ordained enjoyment. Take Vigara and fix it. Enjoy. That is the message. Do it the way I tell you, and enjoy doing it. This is the new unleashed, yet under command sexuality.
CU: You always talk about Freud, suppressed desires and many such things. Is it a raw material for your work?
SK : I think my raw material is my own experience and the rest is complementary factors. Once you say something one starts looking for companions, and one gets them. Marx’s concept of surplus money, Lacan’s extension of surplus enjoyment and Freud’ s writings on paradox of superego… all have the same link. The link says the more you obey, the more you feel guilty. The more you profit the more you want it. The more you fuck the more you want to fornicate. It is just like that. The message is clear and loud—Consume and Enjoy. My works deal with the surplus enjoyment, its process, and its origin in global capital. Therefore sexuality comes automatically as a language. I know many around me, slaves of shops. They shop for no reason, never stop till they drop. My works try to look into this new phenomenon that is hitting our times.
CU: And what about your personal sex life?
Sanjeev : We all are sailing in the same boat. The more you have it you feel that you want more and more of it. Our sexuality as I said earlier is programmed to enjoy, irrespective of fulfillment. Personal sex life and concept of sexuality are two different things. My concept of sexuality is influenced by two thinkers of our times. One is Kumar Ketkar and another is Slavoj Zizek. I started reading Zizek only two years back. Sexuality is to do with all your brain centers, neurologically present in all sides of brain. It is like the consciousness, therefore it is like a language, and its formation is as complicated as any other conscious act. Sexuality is one of the forms or an expression of our conscious mind. It represents both the individual and the collective, with a constant dialogue between them, in their dialectical relationship.
CU: Don’t you think that you did take rather a long time to go in for a solo show?
SK: I had my first show in 2003 and it traveled to Chennai and Delhi. It was titled ‘Rumour of the Truth” and again dealt with the same concerns that I shared with you. It was not too long a time. I would say it was the right time. I was painting and writing profusely, my poetry book was ready, my visual language was shaping up, and that is the time one should come out and exhibit. First few shows teach you more.
CU: Your first show too was packed with sex symbols and naked bodies. How did it go? What was the response?
SK: It was my first show. People were curious and warm. They looked at it and many of them bought my works, lot of reviews did appear, all were encouraging. Nudity, sex and genitals are some of the major concepts in my language. My first short story, I remember that appeared in a local literary magazine, in a small town, when I was eighteen, had lots of raw sex in it. Since then I have been using the image of a vagina to redefine and even to recreate the new space in my works. People did react strongly. The local aesthetics was questioned in my work and reaction was bound to happen. Some groups had become violent, I was stopped in the streets and roughed up. My middle class family members were upset and unhappy.
CU: Within just two years from your first show you worked out a huge installation. Why did you shift from painting to the new medium of installation? Is it because you thought that installation was a new wave in art world and you should grab it instantaneously?
SK: I am a hungry man, Chintan. By nature I am very passionate and my libido is very strong. I keep looking for every new expression and I try to find every new window to pour in . I am a man, who expresses the way man expresses, from all sides and exploring every dimension of the object. Obviously, installation, video, comugraphics, netart, and every such new tool, new medium will lure me. As an artist I think it is important to get lured away and then increase you interaction. The scale of intercourse with such mediums has to be widened and expanded. As an artist one needs to expend out his energies. New mediums give you a new way to expense out. Spend so much that you get broke, ejaculate so much that you get sublimed into vapor. I am convinced that installation gives you this opportunity to negotiate space in multiple dimensions. To create new art one has to create new space, and just look around. The last time when world changed, it brought in the new cyberspace. It is a space of nothing and belongs to nobody. Just dark deep and yet glittering new non-space. I think installation allows you to handle this non space factor in a meaningful way. I am equally fascinated by the way and the volume of space that our bodies carry within themselves. A small hole or even a pore on the skin leads you mysteriously to some secret path where some endocrinal gland is secreting enzyme loaded fluid to negotiate space. I use all these as my raw materials to deal with inner darkness and travel through the enigmatic space holes within our body.
CU: Let us talk about your last show with Vaishali Narkar. Your show had two larger than life size sculptures, as self portraits, naked with aggressive erected phalluses. Your earlier work also had another self portrait, naked and infested with insects. What are these all about?
SK: Self portrait is my signature work. Kumar Ketkar had written about this last time and I agree with him. I told you earlier how body assumes a new role of an instrument that carries a large volume of space within. In many of my works the body becomes a site of corruption. It is used and linked up with perverse enjoyment where power and pleasure relations are being reconstructed. Second thing is what they call “reflexivisation” or second modernization. My concern is power money and sex, the decay, the irrational violence and insatiate desires.
CU: In retrospect, if I see you as a man of controversy, it is not too wrong. Wherever you are there is a controversy. Initially as an activist you were in spot and then you became a corporate biggie and generated heat. As a writer and poet you were criticized for obscene writing and now as an artist you are under heavy criticism. Where are you heading for? What is wrong if someone calls you a publicity seeker or raking up controversy is your?
SK: Look Chintan, neither me nor you are in business of pleasing people. We talk of change and we try to change the language and therefore the existing aesthetic norms. We talk about changing laws which are the expressions of the wills of ruling class. Do you think any one will let you go free?
I encounter opposition because I am in opposition with many and I am saying something which is not easy for many. Am I wrong or right is the decision that I have to make. I may be wrong sometimes, once realized I will mend my ways, but as long as I feel I am on the right path. I may be politically incorrect but I will continue to walk ahead.
We are all going through a strange period of emerging new universe. It is a tough time, both politically and philosophically. Frankly speaking, I don’t love controversy simply because they eat out too much time and resources. I don’t have time and I need to complete my work. I know why I am here. I need to work hard.
CU: Look Sanjeev, after your first two shows there has been a pressure of expectations on your performance. Knowing the expectations, no one will like to do some controversial show. The title (Tits and Clits and Elephant Dick) itself was meant to generate reactions. Why did you try to provoke people?
SK: I agree that the title of the show was out of the way kind. I thought it will generate some curiosity and people will think and read the show in right perspective.
CU: Right perspective? Or you wanted some publicity before the show began? Or that you were after seeking the public reaction in the very beginning itself?
SK: I always consider that when you title the work of art, the title also becomes a part of it. It is as important as your work itself. It is a part of your statement. I had explained the title and the theme in an introductory booklet. I am satisfied with what I did.
CU: Don’t u think it was offending?
SK: it may be offending, I cant help it.
CU: Who do you want to offend?
SK: Actually nobody. I did my work, and its over, now if it offends someone, what can I do?
CU: If it is offending, don’t you think that its your responsibility? Freedom comes with responsibility, is it not?
SK: I know what my responsibility is. I remember as an activist I had run a movement for the right and social use of Siddhi Vinayak Funds in 1986. I had staged demonstrations right in front of the temple. Some thought it was an anti temple activity. Many got offended and it had created stir and I was threatened with life by some fundamentalist groups. I did what I thought right. I was asking to spend the temple fund that is gathered out of common man’s offerings for a good social cause. Some interests were hurt, but press and many others stood with me in support.
CU: You are mixing up the issues. Tell me who do you want to offend?
SK: Look Chintan, I strongly feel that art should be able to augment in everyone the non democratic strength of one's independence. Here in our country democracy means a gigantic marketing machine and it makes people to think that commerce is the most dazzling thing. My responsibility as an artist is to become my own ruthless censor, as Lacan says, ‘convinced of controlling the entire extent of the visible and of audible through commercial laws of marketing and the democratic laws of communication, contemporary power no longer needs censorship. It says, ‘everything is possible’, which also means that nothing is. Abandoning itself to this authorization to jouir is the ruin of all art, as well as all thought.’ As your own censor one should be alert enough so that one does not fall in to the trap of popular laws of morality and popular regulations that define what beauty is. I am proud to have not fallen in the trap of aesthetics of multitude.
CU: Okay. Could you please explain the title of the show a bit more?
SK: Two years back I had written the first draft of a long poem running into several pages. It was written in Marathi but was titled ‘Tits n Clits n Elephant Dick’. The poem was an attempt to revisit the old radical demand of freedom from bourgeois marriage. The context was the new age of global capital, virtual realities, and real time explorations of fantasies on-line. The poem was a story of a couple married legally, where the husband who has returned from a long business tour finds his wife pregnant and gets annoyed. The wife claims that she has conceived from him and as proof of her purity shows him her mail inbox. The mailbox is full of her husband’s letters, husband’s spam and online game invitations from him; similar to those that are online like, second life, naughty America, and sciolotron etc. In the process of online avatars and gaming both mix their real Real to virtual Real and the result is Real pregnancy.
The title came partly from a so called feminist ‘comix’ called ‘tits n clits’ and partly from spam mail which keep pouring the inbox with all such junk.
CU: I remember almost 15 years back the New Brit Art (the YBA- Young British Art) came in and was known for the ‘shocks’ that it had created. Are you inspired by them?
SK: Well, let us first understand this ‘shock’ thing. There is an interesting series of books by Zizek called "Short Circuit" . A short circuit occurs when there is a faulty connection in the network---faulty, of course from the standpoint of the network's smooth functioning. Is not the shock of short circuiting, therefore, one of the best metaphors for a critical reading? he asks. Is not one of the most effective critical procedures to cross wires that do not usually touch to take a major classic (text, author, notion) and read it in a short circuiting way, through the lens of a "minor" author text,or conceptual apparatus( minor should be seen as not lesser quality but as in Deleuze's sense ... marginalized, disavowed by the hegemonic ideology, or dealing with a lower less dignified topic)? If the minor references are well known, such a procedure can lead to insights which completely shatter and undermine our common perceptions. This is what Marx, among others, did with philosophy and religion.(short circuiting philosophical speculation with the lens of political economy). This is what Freud and Nietzsche did with morality(short circuiting the highest ethical notions through the lens of the unconscious libidinal economy). In such an effort simple de-sublimation is not an aim , what is intended is a reduction of the higher intellectual content to its lower economic or libidinal cause; it aims at the inherent de-centering of the interpreted text, which brings to light its 'unthought', its disavowed presuppositions and consequences.
My job as a writer and poet, painter and visual artist is to create a short circuit and redefine the boundaries of aesthetics and work of art. My images, my words, my employment of metaphors and my introduction of new myths should be able to blast out the walls of existing rulebook. I have to live and work in this predicament. My works will generate some or other shocks and therefore I do not repent over the title the title or the content.
CU: And what about the Brit Art influence?
SK: Frankly speaking, I have not seen any of those works. I have seen some catalogues. And I find some similarities. It always happens when you are living and producing in same period and addressing similar concerns or issues. For New Brit Art, issues will be different, concerns can be similar but not the same. Globalization and net communication has brought in a strange neighborhood. I like many of them, to name a few Gavin Turk, Damien Hirst, Tracy Emin, and many others. They did bring in new language and it did affect everybody, including me. My poems and my other works had employed similar language experiments much before. It always happens that simultaneously different people in different parts of the world address similar issues in similar ways.
CU: Don’t you think that the ‘shock’ treatment and the associated language is an old strategy and has lost its steam?
SK: I don’t think so, shock will keep continuing, till we ourselves turn into humanoids in real sense. “Man is a mere passage between animal and overman,” said Netzsche. Our generation was last one who believed for long time that it is the communist society that is real stage where this superhuman or post human will keep behind the ‘pre history’ of mankind. However it did not work. Now the man is getting decoded, recoded, cloned, and is wallowing in the bubble of virtualities. He talks and relates to someone called no one sitting behind the screen of his computer. Our challenge as artists is to be companions of man on our side and if required give him some shocks to keep him this side of reality, so that he does not become another nobody.
CU: So should I prepare myself for the next shock? And what are you planning for your next show?
SK: Next show is dealing more complex and delicate network of wiring, and Yes…., there are some short circuits too. In fact I myself was curiously shocked while doing some of the new works. Last three years I was following and chasing some of these ideas. As the work started the images became clearer, they are violent and emotional, intense and vehement. Some of my friends who had a glimpse of them were almost in their tears. Some said they are as pervert as one can be. And some said they make u sit back for a while and make you unsettled.
CU: Tell me little about your "Nobody's God" Installation.
SK: They are rather ‘Gods of Nobody”. Orphaned, destitute, and philosophically insolvent. It all must have started some years back when my father wound up our ancestral house and gave away several idols of Gods those were being worshiped for more than hundred years in our forefather’s house. I got couple of them. He told me to preserve them, and I put them in the refrigerator for years. The idea of keeping brass metal idols of Gods in the freeze itself was fascinating and it haunted me for years. This is the genesis, I won’t talk more because I am still working. And you know very well that every time the work surprises the artist. I am paused to get surprised.
CU: You are defiantly talking about the contemporary and progressive India in your work but why we don't see your work in Big curated exhibitions or biennials abroad. can you give us little insight in this.
SK: The reason is, I am yet little less known in big circles. I started a little late and most importantly I am a little difficult. I am using a new genre or what you call new strain of images and language. It will take a little more time for many to respond, nothing new. This is what always happens. Secondly I am not talking what West talks or what Western sensibility might like to respond. I am a global Indian, I have the voice of third world, my concerns and my issues are not expressing the western middle class crisis. The issues that I address are important and universal, and they will have to be heard. I am patient, and will wait for my turn to come.
CU: If I say that Sanjeev Khandekar is a nerd in Indian contemporary Art. He is here to get more publicity. Keep a surveillance system to watch on all his activities destroying smoothly going harmoniously progressing Indian art when the foreign curators on the door steps of India.
SK: Did u say Nerd? A wonk?... well , I know my job, I am here to say something. All prophetic works germinate in insignificant and small nooks and corners of the world, most of the times. I am honest to my inner voice, if my works and my words are going to disturb some people, I will be happy, because they are meant to disturb. I talk politics. Politics of people and it will disturb every one. And therefore it will generate publicity too. Politics need to be spread, it needs wider reach, nothing wrong. I am an artist and I will jump on to the rooftop and yell out whatever I need to. Do you think anything wrong here? Chintan, I tell you one thing, I have enough madness in me to kiss sulfuric acid if I like it. Not for publicity of AXN show types. I will kiss it to die. Just like that. Some years back, I remember, I jumped out of a ship in to open sea, I never knew swimming. I jumped because I was lured by the blue of the water. I wanted to kiss that blue. That’s all.
CU: If you allow me to ask you one last question, what is your ambition? Where do you want to reach? How long you will take all this with you? Do you think it will create a new movement in Indian art?
SK: Yes Chintan, we all are destined to create a new movement here. All of us who talk honest little things and love human beings are going to go through a series of complex ordeals. My ambition is simple, yet difficult; to live and die for what I love. Every little creature wants to live in the same way. But he or she is never allowed to. What is allowed in this democratic world is live and die for what ‘they’ love. And who are they? The big corporates and their interests. All my works are a small effort to say “NO” to them. And take my words, victory is on our side.
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