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Mumbai Sketchbook - Abhijeet Tamhane
War, Sensation, Happiness… and Horizons!
Titled ‘Everywhere is war…(and rumours of war)’, the show reigned supreme in Mumbai’s art circuit last month. The importance of the show could partly be traceable to the Gallery that facilitated it, but much of the credit rightly went to Shaheen Merali. ‘Concern’ed readers would rightly remember, the cover story for artconcerns.com September issue was based on the show. Then, I happened to have my hands on the ‘war show’ (hereinafter fondly called so), to discover how Merali curated not only a show that included (or excluded, ahem!) some important artists who would put our thinking of war in ways other than usual, but actually edited a book that put forth post-national arguments for the perceived omnipresence of war.
As I write this, I suspect my compliments to the ‘war show’ are a bit nervous. To begin with, am suspicious of myself thinking in Mumbaiya : ‘Sala apna bombe me koi curator hi nahi hai, Ye dilli se aayi, wo baroda se aaya… aisa hi hai sab mix.’
The voice that might owe something to Mumbai’s public transport and its Cutting chai stalls (in my case) would ever and ever sound parochial. It stops me thinking about the ‘war show’ (whatever fondness I have for it) and gets me rolling to ponder why Mumbai has such few curators. Ranjit Hoskote, Nancy Adajania, Bose Krishnamachari… who else? The newest ‘post-visual girl’ Gitanjali Dang and the curator-in offing Zehra Jumabhoy might complete the list. The list has less content, more discontent. And here, we are in the contentious field of what makes curating a political/ politically relevant act.
Mumbai, to be sure, would be far ahead of Zagreb, Croatia on many counts; but when it comes to curating as a political act, Zagreb – with its curatorial collective ‘What, How and for Who” will score high. There might be a long argument to defend the curators (not because they belong to a city) that they have been able at least to subvert a scene dominated by economic considerations, they have at least made the groundwork… etc. Maybe many cities, and not only Mumbai, have had a bulk of local curators who operate for non-serious (yet valid) aspirations.
Vis-à-vis this, I would like to defend the curatorial effort that has gone into a forthcoming survey show. The list of artists, cut-pasted from the press release of this show, is here:
Francis Newton Souza, Tyeb Mehta, Vasudeo Gaitonde, Akbar Padamsee, Ram Kumar, Adi Davierwala, Meera Mukherjee, Prabhakar Barve, Bhupen Khakkar, Gulam Sheikh, Zarina Hashmi, Laxma Goud, Manjit Bawa, Nilima Sheikh, Arpita Singh, Gieve Patel, Pushpamala, Valsan Kolleri, Alex Mathew, Atul Dodiya, Jyothi Basu, N S Harsha, Anju Dodiya, Jitesh Kallat and Subodh Gupta.
Looks like a perfect non-serious, money-making show, right?
Additional information: the show has been facilitated by Bodhi Art Gallery, Mumbai, and will travel to eight cities including Mumbai.
What makes this show ‘political’ is the fact that the seven cities have hardly ever dreamt of a traveling show. All the cities (Amravati, Nagpur, Kolhapur, Pune, Solapur, Aurangabad, Nashik) have had generations of art-students, but no gallery (if any) in these cities has been able to show ‘so many original works’.
The show, conceptualized by artist Sudheer Patwardhan, is titled “Vistaarnari Kshitije” (Marathi for Expandig Horizons). The conception of such a show is in a way analogous to ‘Place for People’ (Geeta Kapur, 1981). Though Patwardhan did not agree to this observation (in a conversation two months ago), both the shows in question share an intention that art be seen in context of life, by people who have been away from looking at art. While ‘place for people’ placed narrative as the lure of art, ‘Vistaarnari Kshitije’ would explore the lure of art AS A narrative. It might tell people, ‘O come, art was never as away as you apprehended’.
Patwardhan may not call himself a curator. Although his effort might not bring a Sensation (: Young British Artists From the Saatchi Collection, London 1997 and New York, 1999) or Happiness (: A Survival Guide for Art and Life, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, 2003-04), he is set to make a difference. Sensation and Happiness, after all, were well-done survey shows that expanded horizons: they contributed to the change in way we look at art.
If curating is a political act, what else is Patwardhan doing?
