Opening of the Delhi Biennale- Geeta Kapur, Parul Dave Mukherjee and Jyotindra Jain
Representation and Curatorial Tyranny:
Day One
Johny ML tries to grapple with the ideas thrown around in the first day of the international seminar ‘elective affinities, constitutive differences’ by the Delhi Biennale Society at the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, New Delhi.
How do we articulate our cultural positioning as ‘Asians’ against a backdrop of or within the realities of our ‘globalized pre-modern present’? The question was raised by the noted cultural critic and writer Rustom Bharucha. And the occasion was the opening day of the international seminar, ‘elective affinities, constitutive differences: contemporary art in asia’ hosted by the Delhi Biennale Society and the Department of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Bharucha’s question should disturb the organizers and the sympathizers of the Delhi Biennale for the simple reason that the very imagining of Asia as a monolith was brought under scrutiny in this active probing. Perhaps, the concept note of the seminar also intended at a multilayered probing on the notion of Asia and its geo-political and cultural formations by various scholars who could ‘have a place of manoeuvre and bring new, even tendentious, arguments to bear on familiar concepts.’
Before going into Bharucha’s notion of Asia or in this case India going through a ‘globalized pre-modern present’, one should notice how the political correctness is being observed by the Delhi Biennale Society by putting the title of the seminar in ‘lower case’. It clearly indicates that the Delhi Biennale Society does not want to project Delhi/India taking any hegemonic role in organizing an international art event, namely ‘Delhi Biennale’. Besides, Geeta Kapur, who mainly manages the theoretical framework of the proposed Biennale, states that Delhi Biennale is only a possibility, which could be constantly deferred and the seminars of this kind can go on till a clear verdict on its legitimacy and logic is formulated. To make things a bit more clear she says that even the name of the Biennale could be changed into something else.
Caught between the notions of hegemony and expediency, Delhi Biennale Society obviously finds it difficult to assume the role of leadership. Its adherence to the democracy and secularism (both ‘sacred entities’ in India, as put by Sudhabrata Sengupta of the Raqs Media Group while responding to the presentation of Nancy Adajania) puts it directly into a zone of conflict, though the zones of conflicts are to be entertained ‘for catalyzing the opening up of new political frontiers’ (Rustom Bharucha). The scholars who are invited to present their views on Asian art, in this way are directly placed into a zone of conflict. No surprise that most of them expressed doubts on giving exclusivity to ‘Asia’ as a geographical or cultural category. What Asians are we talking about, this sense of doubt set the general tone of the first day of the seminar.
The notions of democracy and secularism (the sacred entities of India) even without finding an active engagement in the first day of the seminar, lingered long like the theme music. Democracy, if we go by the interpretations of Noam Chomsky, is of two types. One, the participatory democracy where notionally and conceptually every one finds freedom and space to participate in the process of general rule. That means one can take charge of one’s own affair by becoming the determining forces. Two, a selective few assuming the role of representatives and posit the ‘herds’ into a realm of ignorance. While maintaining the participatory nature, the authority to decide on one’s own life is handed over to the selected few through chimerical voting rights. Articulating the Asian culture, while going by the definitions of democracy (as seen in Chomsky), falls into the hands of a selected few who with their authority to transcend the geographical borders, there by rendering the process of selection an advancement of totalitarianism and tyranny.
Are curators or cultural mediators turning into agents of tyranny? When the curators like Fumino Nanjo and Wo Nil Rhee brought out their selection of artists for the international shows this tyrannical aspect of selection became very obvious. Locating artist or finding artists from various countries (here from the Asian region) fall into the hands of the curators who do not have much grasp on the ‘globalized and localized’ ground realities. What do they do then? They will seek the help of the hegemonic groups that mediate art and culture from outside the ‘commercial circuit of galleries and art dealers’. This leads to a situation where the artists who operate from and through a different system (alternative? If so what are those alternatives, Shivji Panicker rightly asked from the audience) are taken in or brought out as representatives of a particular ‘geographical region’ rendering rest of the artists from the same region as ‘conformists’. What could be this, if not curatorial tyranny? The last two Documentas and the Indian participation in it exemplify the curatorial tyranny (ignorance?) of adaptation and representation.
On the first day, except for Rustom Bharucha all the other speakers spoke from their curatorial positions and it led to a situation where engagement with the general theme of ‘elective affinities and constitutive differences’ became a sort of impossibility. Oscar Ho Hing Kay, Sharmini Pereira and Nancy Adajania presented their cases through the affinities that they have with certain kinds of artists and certain kinds of art works/process. What one finds are creative and active differences as constituting processes and displacing the possibilities of elective affinities. The selection becomes a curatorial right (Can subaltern speak? The question raised by Gayatri Chakravarty Spivak come once again to the fore) and this curatorial authority lies purely in the personalized theoretical positioning of the curator.
If so, the debatable issue should be changing from the elective affinities, constitutive differences to the problematization of democracy and tyranny in articulating the ‘regional biennales’. Perhaps, the problem of democracy has become a cliché in the seminar circuit and it is surreptitiously understood that no democracy is possible in the selection/representation process. It could be one of the reasons why the seminar is titled ‘elective affinities, constitutive differences’ as there is an agreement on that the curatorial and cultural hegemonies (in terms of theory and praxis and not in terms of commoditization of culture) and tyrannies. Within the accepted paradigm of curatorial tyranny (even the tyranny of theories despite the theorizations on what is after theory) only elective affinities are possible. The constitutive differences have to be entertained to make it look like ‘democratic’.
If we overlook this fact, we would not be able to accommodate the antagonisms (that do not slip into the realm of hatred) as catalyzing agents of culture and it would fail ‘constructive’ (instead of constitutive) differences. Sharmini Pereira, while presenting four Sri Lankan artists working on a year long drawing project was basically looking at these constitutive differences, barring hatred. However, thanks to the democratic hangover, which she has as every one else cherishes, she had to look at the ‘elective affinities’ of those four artists whose works converge rather than diverge in terms of articulating the concerns and images. Locating the works of Shilpa Gupta from her ‘blessed canvases’ to the ‘Blame’, Nancy Adajania too knocks at the doors of elective affinities, and finds the artist’s travel from pilgrim centers to the local trains (in two different projects) as emblematic. However, Nancy sounds convincing when she generates the constitutive differences of expressions by the Indian artists who belong to the minority community (read Muslim).
To digress a bit here to bring the idea of curatorial tyranny once again for the readers, Nancy Adajania, while answering a question about the intentionality of the artists categorically denies that she is not driven by the diktats of the artists. For her, a work of art and a dialogue with the artists place before her ‘hidden secrets and open secrets’. It is her ability to ‘decipher’ the ‘open secrets’ helps her to position the artists in a curatorial project. When the intentionality of the artist is over ruled (or the intentionality is immediately mediatized as put by Nancy herself), what comes to play is the curatorial intentionality. Can it be democratic or tyrannical?
It is here I would like to bring the notion of ‘globalized pre-modern present’ by Rustom Bharucha. By bringing the ideas of ‘globalization’ and ‘pre-modern’ into the same phrase, Bharucha effectively forwards a critique on the state of affairs in India and Asian countries. We have post-post modern claims. But our ‘attitudes of cosmopolitanism” (Manray HSU’s proposal) are still pre-modern. In this pre-modern present, how do we debate curatorial democracy and tyranny? Rustom Bharucha indirectly engages the seminar with this question, though most of them did not try to find an answer for that.
Perhaps, this is an unanswerable question. If you need an answer, again as Bharucha says, ‘the metaphors should be disturbed’. The metaphors, however refuse to die from our theoretical and pragmatic discourse. As Sudhabrata rightly pointed out in his observation about rejection and intimacy, the rejection and disturbing of metaphors facilitate more and more metaphors, which could cloud the clarity of theorization. The first day of the seminar got a good start as Rustom Bharucha could tease the brains of the audience. It was doubtful whether the rest of the sessions could carry that ambience. |
