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TDD-2007:
The New Gestures of Chintan Upadhyay
In this three part essay JohnyML looks at Chintan Upadhyay’s new paintings that deal with the issue of female infanticide and foeticide. He discusses the formation of a rebellious subjectivity that defies the common notion of an artist as the producer of a style vis-à-vis Chintan’s latest set of paintings
Chintan Upadhyay |
In a world of commoditized opulence, demands and modes of consumption equip the consumers with a false sense of freedom. Freedom, as an abstract notion of exercising one’s free will in fact becomes illusory for the simple reason that the abundance of choice does not really help the individual to transcend his or her subjectivity from its socio-economic clutches. The façade of freedom collapses when the parameters of freedom grow and expand as per the growth and expansion of the market and commodities. However, commodities as a chain of signs and consumption as a system of signification engender false subjectivities, which simultaneously give the hope of transcendence and social power. Hence subjectivity itself gains a symbolic status within this system of signification through commodity signs.
Is it possible to generate subjectivity or subjectivities for an individual without entering into a pact with the consumptive system of signification? Artists belong to those sets of individuals who create subjectivities for themselves not through consumption but through production. Interestingly, subjectivity of an artist is referred as a product when it takes the shape of a work of art. However conceptual the work be, however factory based the works of art be, it is the subjective presence of the artist that imparts the ‘product value’ to a work of art. If comprehending the social dynamics could be taken as consumption, artists too are the consumers of signs. Here the marker of difference (between a product consumer and a person who comprehends the social dynamics) is the absolute freedom enjoyed by the artist to make a choice from all what he has comprehended.
Subjectivity of an artist as expressed through a work of art is in a constant struggle with the market’s system of signification as the market wants this particular subjectivity be consumed for its imagined transcendental merits. It forces the work of art and also the subjectivity that defines it as a work of art with transcendental value to become a sign of its own and enter into the generic market system of signification. This demand of and by the market enforces certain ‘qualities’ which are extraneous to the very expression of the subjectivity of an artist. Capturing and defining the artist within an identifiable system of signification in more than one ways comforts the consumer of the artistic subjectivity, who is otherwise called an art collector or buyer.
An artist, in this way, unknowingly becomes a part of the product line, which is further defined by the language that he uses for expressing his subjectivity. Language, in the theories of deconstruction is a chain of signs whose power of signification is always in flux. Interestingly, in art quite often, the chaos that the artistic language engenders is ironed out or obliterated by external interventions thereby making it a fixed one with a qualification called ‘style’. A shift in style or a change in the language by an artist in this sense would definitely mar the comfort levels enjoyed by the consumer of the artistic subjectivity.
Artistic subjectivity defined, and up to an extent confined by his peculiar language and style, then should be functioning between the permissible and non-permissible realms of freedom and expression. The permissibility of expression, in the field of art is understood as something which confirms the rules and regulations of a social/market system. What happens when an artist decides to shift his style, at least for the time being as the formation of a particular subjectivity demands and facilitates such a change? How does an art market, which thrives on comfort levels adopt to such changes, provided that it feels that the artist who brought in the changes to his expression of subjectivity quite indispensable? It could either subsume the new subjectivity of the artist, without raising even a whimper or it could pretend that it is just a period of aberration in the artist’s career. It would perhaps even hope that this too would pass.
II
Chintan Upadhyaya, one of the highly thought provoking artists that India has produced in the recent years has been challenging the comfort levels of the market for the last few years by making deliberate choices in the production of his own subjectivity by bringing in explicitly blasphemous changes in his ‘popular’ style of painting and sculpting. The market has been voraciously consuming Chintan’s so called ‘signature style’, the smoothened, flattened and alluring surfaces that accommodate his smart Alec babies superimposed with exquisitely painted scenarios from Indian miniatures. However, when it comes to his ‘parallel’ practice (Chintan would like to replace the term ‘alternative’ with ‘parallel’), the market makes a deliberate attempt to see it as an ‘aberration’ of the artist.
I would like to discuss a few paintings of Chintan Upadhyaya, which would be presented in his solo show at the Jawahar Kala Kendra, Jaipur from 27th July 2007 onwards. Titled ‘Tentua Dabaa Do’ (TDD), this show would present a set of paintings and installations, which the market could easily call as ‘paintings originating from a period of artistic aberration’ for these works hardly resemble any of the previous paintings or sculptures done by Chintan and presented by the mainstream galleries.
Ragged surfaces of dark acrylic colours as if they were washed by acid and water, blotches of paint submerging the uneven layers, dripping of water that irritates the rhythm of horizontal strokes, deliberate sucking away of flat surfaces that exposes the bareness of raw canvas, uncouth rendering of a female infant (a recurring motif in all these paintings) using black dry pastel, fixing the contours of these foetal images aggressively with adhesives, interpolation of the surfaces with graffiti as if they were written by some mourning semi-literate, placing images at times centrally on to the bare canvas so that they would give a feeling that they are choking in an air-tight vitrine, galloping toads imitating the immersion of the infantile body as if it were happening in a dark comedy etc seen in the new paintings of Chintan would shock the viewer out of his comfort zones.
Here one comes to confront a new subjectivity of the artist, which is totally different from the subjectivity that is expressed in his popular paintings. Production of this new subjectivity takes an entirely different route that traverses to the realms of femininity. The aggressive male subjectivity that one easily identifies with the popular/mainstream works of Chintan faces an auto-challenge (from within the artist himself) from this feminine subjectivity, which is raw and confrontational. While the smooth, flat and glittering surfaces of his paintings and sculptures capture the sophisticated, aggressive and intrusive aesthetics of the mediatized global world, these new canvases play up the counter points to this. The flattening of the world as emblematized in the flattened television screens and the ephemeral chains of visuals that give out the fleeting sense of comprehension, in Chintan’s paintings are understood as the critiquing zones of sophisticated aggression of the male/imperial ideology that subjugates the world in the name of progression. Here the artistic subjectivity plays along the rules and regulations of this progression as if it were happening in the natural field of survival mimicry.
The feminine subjectivity of the artist, though not deliberately posited at the retrogressive ideology of nature-culture binary, has to be seen in the counter production of a raw aesthetic, which is turned and tuned to rural existence, which falls outside the theories of a flattening/flattened world. This feminine subjectivity, by shedding all its accumulated lessons of sophistication goes back to its gestural and active modes of expression. It acts from the field of memories, lived experiences and from the present realities. This subjectivity searches for the sites of memories that helped in the primordial production of such subjectivities, irrespective of gender barriers.
The new set of works and the show in general address and further the issue of female foeticide and infanticide prevalent in many areas in India. This inhuman act is rampant particularly in Chintan’s home state, Rajasthan. Studies have likened the female foeticide and infanticide to genocides with the surreptitious approval of the governments. Here I would like to bring a parallel between this kind of genocide and the holocaust in pre WWII Germany. Many theoreticians including Theodore Adorno have said that it was impossible to express the magnitude of the holocaust through aesthetic modes (poetry is impossible after Auschwitz). Despite many qualifications to such statements, expressing holocaust in aesthetics still raises heated discourses.
Perhaps, in India, female infanticide and feoticide are such experiences that had never been intervened by aesthetic discourse until Chintan came up with his previous project titled ‘Tentua Dabaa Do’ (2006). In the production of ‘Tentua Dabaa Do’ (2007) Chintan confronts this inexplicable suppression of facts. As an artist hailing from Rajasthan, it becomes almost impossible for him to talk or not to talk about this unofficial holocaust. In order to identify, address and break this silent suppression, he has to search for an alternative subjectivity, which does not posit him as a ‘native’ colonizer.
Assuming a subjectivity that is gestural and mourning suits to this purpose and also it helps him to reinvent the other in him; the other who could strip off the cultural (mis)givings including clothes and demand immediate attention. Here Chintan attempts the impossible and makes it possible. It is impossible because no aesthetics except for the actual documentary details can effectively bring in the pathos of this genocide. But, by de-aestheticizing the possible (even the aesthetic beauty that the documentaries have), Chintan achieves his results in the form of ‘a-paintings’ (so they are paintings) and installations.
An artist who addresses genocide in his works faces the problem of utterance, especially when he belongs to a community that has committed the crime. There is an Oedipal problem involved in this. To come out with the utterance, the artist has to kill ‘the’ father who facilitates the genocide. For Chintan, not only the males of his community (whom he has effectively represented using an oversized turban in his Tentua Dabaa Do (2006) project) but the society in general too comes out as villains. He at once becomes a collaborator and commentator. But as a sensible personality, the artist would like to maintain his position as a commentator rather than being a collaborator in the crime. So he kills the ‘father’. And the act of annihilation is enacted in his gestural act on the canvases. Could there be a blinding in this act? Perhaps, the new subjectivity that Chintan assumes is dark, primordial, feminine and blind. He identifies more with the mourning Jacostas and by blinding himself, by getting rid of the all powerful gaze (doing away with the potent tool of penetration) he assumes the subjectivity of the mourning women (who are aggressive in their mourning) who are forced to strangulate the female infants or kill them in their very wombs.
Though ‘TDD’ (2007) is not a site specific work (unlike Tentua Dabaa Do-2006), the site that he has chosen to exhibit is worth noticing. Jawahar Kala Kendra is the hub of the cultural activities in Jaipur, Rajasthan and despite its cultural centrality the edifices lay in ruins thanks of official apathy and callousness. There is an uncanny resemblance between the ragged surfaces of Chintan’s paintings and the interior of the building. Both perhaps in their memories search out for the glorious days prior to ruin and crime. Chintan’s paintings work from memory and documentary and in this act, they do not actually bring forth the sites of crime, instead, they evoke the sense of crime committed by a society in general and they ooze into the layers of its cultural memory.
III
JohnyML: Chintan, these new paintings, I feel, would really challenge the viewer and they would feel that you are trying to destabilize their convictions…
Chintan Upadhyay: If they think they are challenged, it is a good thing. But I think, if they are really challenged, they don’t know anything about my aesthetic production. I have been trying to articulate my subjectivities in varied forms and styles ever since I started working with art seriously. If anybody tries to confine me in one style, it is absolutely their problem.
JML: These paintings are more gestural while your popular paintings are more painterly. What do you say?
CU: As you know Chintan Upadhyay is Chintan Upadhyay Unlimited. My factory based productions are precise and well thought out renderings. I am sure about the ideology and aesthetics that I am dealing with in them. There is a graphic precision in these works. They represent the attitude of our times. They talk about the male oriented globalized world. I can easily flatten the painterly and sculptural surfaces towards creating an effect. But the new set of paintings is not like that.
These paintings, if I speak in retrospective, were always there in me in many different forms. I have attempted this coarse and raw surfaces and imageries in my installations and performances. ‘TDD’ was working in me for a long time and I was not sure the way I should approach it. I have been involved in the issue of female infanticide and foeticide for a long time and have done a lot of researches on this issue. Besides that I could manage to get real life documentary evidences from the actual scenes of crime.
After the Tentua Dabaa Do project in 2006, I kept coming back to the subject in regular intervals. One day, I came to my studio and started literally attacking the canvases with paints. I rubbed, washed, blotched and scratched the acrylic surface as if I were trying to create the actual scene of crime. These gestures slowly evolved and continued the same sense of action. I did not make any deliberate attempt to make it a stylistic language. There was no other way to do it.
JML: Will you call it your language?
CU: Any gesture, which is intended to express some deeper thoughts, for an artist, constitutes his language. So it is my language. I don’t want to call it experimental or anything like that. These paintings could not have been done in any other way.
JML: Your show has a collaborative nature, I feel. Lots of village folks are involved in producing the parts of your installation. How does it differ from your factory based works?
CU: In contemporary art production, the modernist idea of genius has been considerably thwarted. Technical assistance is an unavoidable part of the contemporary art production. The concept of factory itself is based on the technical assistance employed in the production. However, the ‘technical assistance’ of my village folks differs a bit from its usual sense. They are not asked to do anything which they do not know. They don’t produce anything in bits and parts. They are asked to produce certain objects that they otherwise make in their daily lives, in different dimensions. I integrate these objects into my installations. In the traditional Marxian sense, they are not ‘alienated’ from what they are doing.
JML: Why don’t you exhibit ‘TDD-2007’ in a mainstream gallery?
CU: One of the major mainstream galleries, Ashish Balram Nagpal Galleries, is supporting me to mount ‘TDD-2007’ in Jaipur.
JML: Do you think these works will be bought by your regular collectors?
CU: As per my experience the buying community is not a monolith. Each collector has his or her reason to collect a work of art. I believe there are so many sensible collectors in India.
JML: Despite all your efforts, why the issue of female infanticide has not become a major point of debate in Indian art?
CU: I am sure that many artists will take up this issue in the coming years. I look forward to those artists who work with feminist ideas.
JML: What are your future projects?
CU: I have a few commitments with galleries. Once that is done, I will be concentrating more on Sandarbh Workshops, which actually gave me an opportunity to come out with the female foeticide and infanticide issue. |
