Condemn this act

Al Saidi Hassan

Sorry, Al Saidi Hassan. I apologize to you on behalf of my fellow Indian citizens. You have been here for a long time. You have made Delhi your home away from home. You no longer look like an ‘Iraqi expatriate’.

On 28th March evening Khoj International presented its open studio with the visiting artists. Al Saidi Hassan, what was the crime you did that day? Why did you decide to go through that Muslim mohalla, after attending the Khoj Program?

Your crime was wearing a T-Shirt with a slogan ‘Hang Saddam’. You had your reasons to wear a t-shirt like that. Anybody has freedom to wear whatever they want. I like girls wearing t-shirts with writings like this, “The Twin Towers’, ‘My Boyfriend is Away’, “State of Affair” etc. But I cannot take it as an invitation.

They beat you up. They support Saddam because they have their reasons to do so. But they don’t have any business to beat you up for wearing a T-shirt. I felt bad when you showed me the bruises on your body.

In our country, no artist, irrespective of his/her origin, should be beaten up for expressing their opinion. Let us condemn those people who attacked Al Saidi Hassan in New Delhi.

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The Baroda Season

It is a Baroda Season in Delhi. There are five shows of Baroda based/trained artists simultaneously on in different galleries here. There at the Travancore Art Gallery, Jayaram Poduval curates a show for mattersofart.com. Titled ‘Chronicles of the Unspoken’, this show has Al Saidi Hassan, Ashutosh Bharadwaj, Balaji Ponna, Bhagyanath.C, Bijoy Basak, Gayatri, Gamuz, Joy Paul, Kaushal Sonkaria, Manoj Vyloor, Naveen Kumar, Pappu Bardhan, Pradeep P, Raju Patel, Ramesh Pithiya, Ranjit Raman, Sajith A.S, Tadi Subhakar and Venkanna T.

Though all of them are not from Baroda, there is a predominant Baroda flavor in the show. Jayaram Poduval, surprisingly follows the ‘issue of Baroda’, that is the voicing the minor/other/subaltern, in his curatorial note. Jayaram, as a curator maintains an academic detachment with the issue of body. He brings in the male body as a problematic and most of the artists are given freedom to work the way they want.

Gayatri Gamuz, Al Saidi Hassan, Ashutosh Bharadwaj, Joy Paul, Ramesh Pithiya, Ranjit Raman and Venkanna T have presented some exceptionally good works. Kaushal Sonkaria presents a part of Indian constitution formulated by Dr.B.R.Ambedkar where he talks about the rights of the Dalits. Al Saidi Hassan also comes forward to present a very minimal narrative on the state of affairs in Iraq using graffiti and slogans.

Many artists in this show look as if they were desperately looking for a suitable language to articulate their ideas. Mediatic Realism, though in the waning mode, becomes a point of reference to most of the artists in the show. I would call them as later comers. The sooner they find their language, the better for their future.

Look at Bhavna Kakkar’s ‘Team Unteamed II’ at Art Konsult. It has nine Baroda artists, namely Alok Bal, Barun Chowdhury, Debraj Goswami, Farhad Husain, Manoj Sinha, Ramgopal Kumawat, Sharmi Chowdhury, Shiv Verma and Sukhdevsinh V.Rathod. This show is second in a series that showcases the artists from various art schools. Last year it was a Chandigarh alumni show. This year it is from Baroda.

The artists are familiar and most of them have found their niches in the Indian art scene. However, when showcased in this manner, you would tend to look at their language with a special interest. What do you see? You see figures that do contortionist acts, scrambled images from Guernica, Bhupen like naïve art, Shiekh like narratives etc. The artists have done their best, I would say. However, when they are brought together, I find them struggling with their languages. They want to look different. But most of them find it difficult to generate newer images. What is happening in Baroda? Why people don’t dare to dig up their own mind and surroundings to get new images?

Sachin Karne is a well known artist from Baroda. His solo is on at Shridharani, presented by Sakshi Gallery. Sachin’s works look fresh and they hold a lot of concern for our socio-political realities. The artist is not a neo-Buddhist, however, he profusely uses Buddha images, including those from Bamyan in order to generate a debate on the kind of ‘peace talks’ going on around the world. He problematize the concept of peace, using the icon of a man who stood for world peace. The most striking image from the show is a horizontally lying Buddha image covered with a quilt that has war machines as designs. This painting speaks volumes in a very subtle way.

Though I would agree with the ideas, concerns and style of Sachin, I would not agree with his water colours. Those watercolours, though subtly and beautifully done, come to me with the typical Baroda watercolour baggage. Happily, Sakshi has decided not to present too many of them. I would congratulate Abhijeet Tamhane for his well composed, controlled and contextually relevant catalogue forward as he rightly points out that though the artist has gone through the trails and tribulations of Gujarat pogrom, he does make turn it into his immediate ‘raw material’. This detachment is appreciable, though many would ask why Bamyan Buddha? Why shouldn’t the artist use those images? Have all those artists painted and sculpted fighter jets ever experienced a flight in them? You need to not deliver a baby to talk about birth pangs, you need only creative flourish.

However, when it comes to Kriti Arora’s solo ‘Inroads…bloodlines’ at Palette Art Gallery, I would contradict myself. Kriti, again a Baroda alumnus, presents a series of paintings done with oil and tar on canvas and her inspiration came from a visit to the northern border terrains of India, where she happened to see a host of road builders working in the most inclement weather conditions. She gives iconicity to those unsung heroes in her paintings. She paints their portraits with a kind of neo-post-impressionist aggression and opens up their bodies to expose their ailing innards.

Surprisingly most of these paintings are quite striking and they have a striking resemblance with the self portraits done by Vincent Van Gogh. Also their postures send out a feeling of Giotto’s murals. There is the scent of asphalt in the gallery and the total ambience is something similar to Steve Mcqueen’s famous video/documentary work on the mine workers. Kriti is perfect in her presentation. But how does she connect herself with those workers? Does her icon making surreptitiously convert the plight of set of human beings, devoid of voice and rights into commodities? May be these questions are not relevant anymore.

There at the Art Room Gallery, Sainik Farms, there is another show, ‘Mapping Baroda’ with forty Baroda artists. That is quite a number. I have not got the chance to see the show yet. But I am curious, why Baroda has become a passion for all suddenly? May be in the coming issues we will find an answer.