Art & Depart

By Vishal Tondon

I just lay my hands on the July 2010 issue of the art magazine Depart, published by Art & Bangladesh, and I have to say I was floored. To begin with, the magazine is very stylish and it has an impeccable design and layout. And it is not the regular A4 in size. It has a bigger format, which appeals to me, and it certainly helped that the cover looked unusually whacky with the picture of a stricken boy staring back at me with a rather confounding glare. As it turns out, the image is from a photo series by Munem Wasif and it depicts a victim of the Cyclone Sidr.

Well, kudos to Manan Morshed, the art and design director of the magazine for getting the best out of an obviously talented set of designers. 

The magazine opens one’s eyes to the diverse and myriad interests and sensibilities at work simultaneously on the Bangladesh art scene right now. The enthusiasm is also palpable, and it is significant when seen in the light of the fact that Bangladesh is a very young country charged with the will to create and identity for itself. The recent spurt of activity on the art scene might be looking at making the most out of the relatively liberal political scenario in the country right now.

In fact, one can see from some of the writings in Depart that while many young artists there are looking outside for sources for visual vocabulary, art criticism in Bangladesh is getting a bit of a hard taskmaster, putting critical theory to good use. There is a sense of self-introspection and self-criticism, and the critics there clearly want the younger generation to push the envelope. Let us consider a review by Shakhawat Tipu. Writing on the 17^th Young Artists’ Exhibition – which according to him reveals a hole in the structure of praxis – he manifestly says that the exhibits are poor on the level of praxis. Giving due consideration to the rawness of youth, Tipu holds institutions at blame for the inadequacies. One issue that Tipu brings up is pertinent, as it applies to many young artists passing through Santiniketan as well. Charged with the intent to prove their ideology and take sides, brash youthful artists often come up with short-sighted reactions to modernity. They are polarized between either an unabashed appreciation of modernity as progress, or a downright rejection of modernity as evil. Tipu also finds it problematic that many young artists paint and sculpt with an intention to ‘excite empathy’, and this is in young Bangladeshi art becoming a trend. Tipu also comments on the oppressive influence of Indian as well as deshi predecessors. His criticism of consumerism as an enemy of creativity is unambiguous.

Then there is the obituary to Shovon Shome which is penned down by Syed Azizul Haque. To a reader like me, who hails from Santiniketan, writings like this obituary are a revelation in their unearthing of conflicts of ideologies that mapped the scene when Bengal was one and luminaries like Zainul Abedin were very much a part of a larger heterogeneous Bengali culture. The obituary mentions that Shome appreciated Zainul Abedin’s work in its situated knowledge and in its representation of the mufassil man. Shome, on the other hand, was not comfortable with either the high priests of Bengal School or the Ravi Varma kind of modernism. Shovon accused both the schools – Victorian academism as well as Revivalism – of securing the support of the Indian bourgeoisie. 

Depart has some inspired and insightful articles that make for good and rigorous reading. The issue carries a longish essay by Syed Jamil Ahmed on interventionist theatre. The essay, to begin with, deconstructs the meaning of ‘intervention’ itself, and it goes on to establish ‘intervention’ as a consummate site of political struggle. The insightful essay walks you through the recent history of the ‘progressive’ interventionist theatre, exploring the views of personalities ranging from Marx and Engels to Feuerbach, Brecht, Benjamin, and finally to the interventionist methods of Paulo Friere and Augusto Boal. Going through the impressive writing, it hits you how so much of interventionist theatre – as is the case with a great part of the corpus of recent work in literature and other intellectual fields – is leftist in its stance.

The essays and reviews on photography were also revealing. Ebadur Rahman reviews the exhibition ‘Soulscape’ showcased at the Bengal Gallery of Fine Arts in June 2010. He muses over the complicity between the representation of the systematic violence of poverty and its perpetuation by photography for fun and profit. He wonders about how “…Art Photography in Dhaka – reinforces the Orientalist hermeneutics that confuse fascination as critique, voyeurism as empathy and profit as exposing-of-social-wrongs…”

In another assessment from this issue of Depart, Quddus Mirza contextualizes the multimedia works of Pakistani artist Rashid Rana in anticipation of the show ‘Perpetual Paradox’ at Musee Gimet in Paris. Mirza’s insights into Rashid Rana’s works are illuminating. He ascribes the success of Rana’s work to its visual constructions of multilayered meanings and to his social, formal and conceptual concerns. But one might also want to remember the workings of the biennale-galleries coalition that is right now almost exclusively promoting art with a certain ‘international kind of look.’

The magazine Depart has quite an eclectic mix of writings on artists from the East as well as the West. As a gesture of paying homage to Sigmar Polke, the issue includes an assessment of the life and work of the important German artist, who passed away just a few weeks before the publication of this issue. The Goethe-Institut Bangladesh had just then honored the artist by bringing a collection of 40 of his original gouaches to Bangladesh.

The July 2010 issue of Depart also includes an essay by Shawon Akhond on the writing of art history. It speaks about focusing on location specific realities, and the author removes layers of dominant narratives to chart the terrain of history of the Dhaka art scene.

Another authoritative essay by Dr Paula Sengupta presents art en route to postmodernism in Kolkata. What I found interesting was the disclaimer that ‘depart’ issued along with this essay, which reads as follows:

“Depart’s position on typifying art through Western categories such as Modernism and Postmodernism is that Modernism is actually multimodernism through its selective interriorization, and Postmodernism has primarily been seeped into the art scene through exposure to the contemporary practices around the globe.”

So, reading Depart was overall an enlightening, and might I add pleasant experience. I would recommend the journal highly. 

Think Like a Child!

By Vishal Tondon

My initiation into the field of illustration of books for children was a lesson in humility; I had to practically unlearn whatever I knew about drawing and painting. “You are trying too hard! Keep it simple!” chided the author. “Think like a child!”

Think like a child? 

Well, I have to admit I never realized it wouldn’t be easy to please kids. Since I had always seen them giggle at the behest of even the silliest of cartoon shows on television, I thought they were pretty dense. As it turned out, the joke was on me. The author ran me through a crash course on how the popular and successful illustrators for kids, Shel Silverstein, Quentin Blake and Dr Seuss get into the head of a child and work magic with their pens and paintbrushes. 

My friend, Dr Devdutt Pattanaik, is the author of the first set of six books that I ever illustrated professionally. Incidentally, he is quite an accomplished illustrator himself! 

Published by Penguin Puffin under the series titled Fun in Devlok, the books for kids aged 6+ introduce the young ones to the stories and legends from Indian mythology in an easy and palatable manner. 

Devdutt, who is a medical doctor by training, a leadership coach by profession and a mythologist by passion, had long felt the need for secular and entertaining books for the little ones. The books had to be simple yet authoritative. Dr Devdutt Pattanaik has done his postgraduate diploma in comparative mythology from the Mumbai University, and has managed to strike the perfect balance between the demands of his corporate job and the pleasures of creative writing.

His idea was to come up with stories for kids where the gods had as much fun playing and interacting with kids, as the kids had with them. With the culture of reading books on the wane, this is a small step in the direction of making books fun, especially those that intend to teach. 

So there would be in the series books in which Shiva played dumb charades with kids, while the kids learnt about the stories related to Shiva as a part of the game. There would be a book where the god Krishna would have trouble getting through security check at the airport for want of an identity card, and in another story, a little boy called Harsha would be able to teach Indra, the king of Gods, a lesson in humility and contentment. In another book Saraswati, the goddess of learning, would chide the schoolteacher for forcing the students to cram up things without understanding them.

There are also stories for kids on character building. Like Kama vs Yama. Kama is the god of fun and frolicking, while Yama is the god who teaches one to be dutiful. A little girl, through the course of her interaction with the two gods, realizes that she will have to eventually strike a balance between studying and playing, as both are important. 

Stories like An Identity Card for Krishna from the series have also appeared in episodic forms in Tele kiDs, a supplementary of the Telegraph, Kolkata, and we are happy that the kids are enjoying them! 

Well, it is hoped that the books are well appreciated and enjoyed by the kids, for whom Dr Devdutt has so lovingly written these!     

For more information on Dr Devdutt Pattanaik, visit:

www.devdutt.com

http://www.liquida.com/devdutt-pattanaik/

For more info on the books, visit the publisher:

http://www.penguinbooksindia.com/puffin/Authors/_Devdutt_Pattanaik.aspx

For parents’ reviews on the books, visit:

http://www.saffrontree.org/2011/04/fun-in-devlok.html

For excerpts from the books, visit:

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110720/jsp/telekids/story_14260729.jsp

http://www.wap.telegraphindia.com/1110706/jsp/telekids/story_14200352.jsp

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110622/jsp/telekids/story_14142421.jsp

Of Underdogs, Demons and Vagina Dentate: A Question of Identity

By Vishal Tondon

This article appeared in Searching Lines magazine, Department of Art History, Kala Bhavan, 2009

 

'A Bedouin Arab' by John Singer Sargent

The artist lives and expresses himself within a world of words and images. It has been proposed that in a postmodern world, words and images, as signifiers, express the reality of a subject. This postmodern view of the world has implications for the artist’s understanding of the self and of others. He looks out for the communicative signs that link identities with the rest of the world. The artist often places himself as the conscience of society, and fishes out identities from the subaltern, to remind us of their right to exist.

“People are what they look like and what they say; they are the text of their own lives.”¹

The theologian Don Cupitt quoted the above as a clue to the understanding of the ‘self.’ As an extension, it can also be applied to an understanding of identities of others. Can there be any view of a person’s identity other than what he actually reveals? The artist technician sources out signifiers associated with identities, which he then uses in the process of image making.

Indian contemporary modern is a hotbed of activity inclined to dissolve the polarities set in place by political communities. Also, increasingly, artists are reacting to a new kind of ‘social class system’ brought in by globalization. With the concept of race being declared obsolete after post-Darwinian population genetics, the basis for social classes now is capitalism. 

Riyas Komu questions this new ‘caste system’ by bringing the marginalized labor class to the forefront through his series called ‘Unconditional’ (2002), for which he sourced portraits of anonymous cast outs from the mass media; so to say the small fry or the underdogs. These images contribute significantly to what the cultural theorist Nancy Adajania has called “the new mediatic realism.” “Grass” (2005) and “Systematic Citizen” (2006) carried portraits of his assistants, thus recognizing their role in the larger scheme of things, and giving them visibility. 

Riyas Komu; Systematic Citizen (2006)

 

From where does Komu source out this empathy for the marginalized? From his past experiences with scuffling identities. In his growing years, Komu had pictured Bombay as a multi-ethnic dwelling where there would not be the threat of being fenced in local identities. Instead, during the riots of December 1992-February 1993, these imaginings crumbled to the ground.

The question of conflicting identities is thrown up once again in the current scenario with the U.S, its allies and surrogates hegemonizing populations conceived as potential threats to their interests. The strategy is to manufacture consent for elimination of these peoples by using the mass media as a propaganda system. The machinery effectively demonizes these people and the basis for discrimination invariably is race. As Herman and Chomsky point out:

“A propaganda system will consistently portray people abused in enemy states as worthy victims, whereas those treated with equal or greater severity by its own government or clients will be unworthy.”²

We are now looking at the embattled world through the lens, and while cosmetic changes to documentary visuals may tweak the reality in favor of the propagandist, different identities are looking at the same visuals in different ways. A discourse on opposed ways of looking at such visuals is provoked by T. V. Santhosh’s work ‘Your Terrorist, Our Freedom Fighter,’ (2004). In this diptych, we come across a masked protagonist, his hands raised to make the victory sign. The two panels are composed in color negative and positive; a technique he employs to depict a protagonist whose identity can be read in two different ways.  Depending on the viewer’s ideology, the terrorist may be perceived as a freedom fighter, or the freedom fighter as a terrorist.

 T. V. Santhosh; Your Terrorist, Our Freedom Fighter (2004)

We live in times where widespread surveillance in the public as well as private sphere has been legitimized post 9/11. Demonizing a population conveniently makes it rightful to infringe on their privacy. Personal identities lived in private spheres are being flung into the public domain. Some of Santhosh’s mediatic images seize his subjects during their very private act of praying, suggesting that all of their actions are under constant surveillance. The tradition of popular suspicion of Muslims across the non-Muslim regions of the world has led to much violation of their right to privacy. 

 T V Santhosh; Elusive Solutions  Need Sharp Scriptures  (2004)

In T. V. Santhosh’s positive-negative images, identities occupy an ambiguous position in the viewer’s mind: it is difficult to judge their politics, and even more difficult not to give them a benefit of doubt.

    

Although now the propaganda system used to demonize identities is more sophisticated and even subtle, it was more brazen earlier. In the 1920s came up the now widely discredited idea of physiognomic ‘character-reading.’ It proposed stereotypes of human nature and character based on physical appearance and physiognomy. One such ethnic stereotype that helped demonize a race was the Bedouin Arab’s. In 2002, painter and sculptor Jehangir Jani made some head casts of himself as a study. Looking at these head-casts can you prove that he is a Muslim person of alternative sexuality? The head-casts speak for a universal human identity. And yet, like Changez Khan, the protagonist of the Booker Prize winning novel, “The Reluctant Fundamentalist,” he is a marked man. Every Muslim face is now scanned as a potential threat to world peace.

How does Jani react to this ‘boxing in’ of his identity? He takes an unexpected and mature turn by questioning the beliefs and devices of his own community. In his seminal installation titled ‘Feast of the Lambs”, the feast shared by Bohra males on festivals, is offered to four sheep, the very animals that would give their flesh for the making of the feast. Are the sheep being honoured by this feast or are merely being fed before the slaughter? Through this work, Jani questions the acquiescent followers of his faith pertinent questions about their identity, their destiny, and about their role in helping shape the image the non-Muslim world has constructed of their community.

Jehangir Jani; Feast of the Lambs (2007)

As an individual belonging to sexual and communitarian minorities, Jani has spent his life in both institutional and non-institutional structures. This informs his discourses on identity. His works make claims for equality and dignity for all.

Jani brings up the question of sexual identity through his installation ‘Pink Sun’ (2002), which was put up at the NGMA Mumbai. In a culture traditionally used to seeing the female nude, Jani proposes the possibility of the male nude. The effeminate male protagonist in this work questions the conventional norms of beauty endorsed by the male gaze. More importantly, the figure’s presence curiously unsettles macho and patriarchal expectations; a transgression that conventionally would be expected only of a feminist woman artist.

Where sexual identities are concerned, feminism itself has been relegated to stereotypes through sloppy discourses in the past, and there have been attempts to confine the feminist identity into slots. Of course feminism has come a long way, and has more possibilities now.

One of the guiding lights for feminist thought, the French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir offered a decisive feminist critique of sexuality in her 1949 book ‘The Second Sex:’

“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”

This brief and influential sentence raises a question as simple and complex as ‘What is a woman?’

It is with well informed considerations, often amusingly centered on the sexual act, that the artist Mithu Sen constructs an account of female sexuality, examining biological, psychological, historical and cultural constructs. Interestingly, in a country where female feticide is still rampant, her take-off point for feminism lies way ahead of the demands for civil rights and educational opportunities.

In her watercolor series titled “Drawing Room” (2006), Mithu Sen is seen to disregard protocols expected of “the fair sex”; of passive complicity in the politics of sexual identities played within patriarchal domesticity. By representing the female sexuality with images contrary to the ones expected, Sen tackles the clichés by which women are popularly represented. Through this suite of paintings, she speaks of the pain and embarrassment that are intimately related to female sexuality. The ithyphallus recurs as an ominous symbol of male domination in these works. But, to Sen’s credit, she avoids grounding her critique of female sexual exploitation by incriminating male sexuality alone. Her passion-laden red whorls of flowers and representations of the vagina dentate articulate female sexual pleasure with parody and humour. The vagina dentate is a suitable retort to the reckless violence unleashed by the dominion of the phallus.  

Mithu Sen; Untitled

Sen’s protagonists do not suffer from a lack of the female self, thus quashing one of the proposals of Freud’s theory of sexuality. Also, they appear as complex, autonomous individuals rather than as the metaphorical virgins or whores.

With the world shrinking as an outcome of technology and globalization, identities have become more amorphous, and are informed by numerous cross-cultural influences. It is more a world of individualities than one of stereotypical identities now. So we see that patriarchal constructs are being questioned by female as well as male artists. And artists are questioning not only the hegemony of totalitarian regimes, but are also putting their own communities to the liability test. We find that identities are numerous and fluid. As many persons, so many identities. The basic need is sensitivity and empathy towards shifting identities, and equal human rights for all.

References:

1.        Don Cupitt. ‘The Time Being.’ 1992, p.35

2.        Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. Vintage Books, London; 1994, p. 37 

Bibliography:

1. Ranjit Hoskote. In a Penumbra of Aftermaths: A Meditation on Riyas Komu’s ‘Faith Accompli’. Exhibition Catalogue, Sakshi Gallery Mumbai; April 2006

2. Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. Vintage Books, London; 1994, p. 37

3. Nancy Adajania. No Alibis for the Image. Unresolved Stories. T. V. Santhosh. The Guild; 2006.

4. Ratnottama Sengupta (Ed). Alternate Lyricism. Jehangir Jani. Mapin Publishing Pvt. Ltd; 2006

5. Great Expectations. Jehangir Jani. Museum Gallery, Mumbai. Exhibition catalogue; 2007

6. Nancy Adajania. Mithu Sen. “Drawing Room.” Exhibition catalogue; 2006

Publish Post

An Interview with Tushar Joag

Published in Art News and Views in April2011

The DIY Artist with a Mission

A conversation between Vishal Tondon and Tushar Joag

Looking for Flora

Tushar Joag is a man with a mission. Flora, the spirit of Mumbai, has gone missing and he will help find her. He dismantles and rebuilds the Flora Fountain several times as he travels with her across Mumbai looking for her lost spirit. The frenzied character of the city is reflected in this work. Tushar has consistently dealt with issues relating to the city. He makes art as public intervention and invents mock corporate identities like Unicell with its PWC (Public Work Cells), a corporate body of one. Unicell – as an act of satire –creates objects like the Lamp Post Woman, the Street Sign Man, the Post Box Man and the Couch Man; vendor stalls that metamorphose into harmless looking objects at the scent of prowling municipal officials. Or the Commuter Attachment Systems which will help boarders hang on to every available surface, including the exterior, of the overcrowded local trains. These devices that are impractical solutions to the urban situation lampoon the absurdities of the bureaucracy that despoiled the urban fabric. 

The defacing of public monuments by regimes and their subjects is also a cause for grave concern. So, ‘Reconciliation and Truth’, an exposition by the Unicell Department of Monuments and Edifices – of which Tushar is the self-appointed bureau chief – came up with the suggestion that all future monuments be created as debris, so as to avoid the public being tempted to desecrate them in the first place! Also, a prototype for a do-it-yourself (DIY) monument was created as a sneer at the tradition of vandalizing historical monuments to create new ones.  

Tushar believes art is responsible for maintaining cultural continuity as well as providing ruptures that bring a fresh outlook through its questioning of the present.

We had the opportunity to interview Tushar as he came down to Kala Bhavan, Santiniketan, as a resource person for the workshop ‘The Presence of Past’, during the days 1^st-8^th March. Here are excerpts from the interview.

Vishal Tondon: We are glad to have you here for this workshop. We are keen to know what activity your group is coming up with, and how have you briefed your students?

Tushar Joag: We decided to look at different modes of transport in Santiniketan. As for a briefing, I am here only to facilitate the whole process and keep it on track. I let the students come up with the ideas. We decided to do one collaborative project. Somebody spoke about the Ambassador, and it was absolutely a blast from the past. In all, we have taken five modes of public transport of which we would create a hybrid. In India, the past and the present occur simultaneously and we have hybrids. I encourage the students to go talk to the people who ply these vehicles. We will make stop animation films using these vehicles and the interviews the students collect. My brief to them has been to creatively put together the data, just as an artist should. They are weaving a story. So these vehicles in the film will be seen to travel down parallel histories, and then come to an intersection where they collide with a bang and we get a new hybrid vehicle, the POP-005 (Presence of Past-005). This vehicle will be functional and driven around the campus and the streets. By the way, the headlight of the vehicle will double up as the projector from which the film will be played.

 Tushar Joag with students at 'The Presence of Past' workshop, Santiniketan

VT: How has the interaction with the students been so far?

TJ: As a student, I never got to interact with artists. So I am always very happy to be invited to interact with students. I like to share my experience with them. But I have something to say to the younger generation. I feel they do not totally get involved with things. When they are told to go and interact with people and get data, they will just ask one or two questions and come back. Which is not only here, it is so also at other places. I don’t see the passion. I don’t understand why that is. They would rather hit the internet than do field work. I feel one should work harder.

VT: You were saying, “It is not enough to politicize aesthetics but it is necessary to also aestheticise politics.” Could you please elaborate on that? 

TJ: Let me give you an example of what aestheticising politics would be. Medha Patkar and other protestors of Narmada Bachao Andolan were supposed to go to Mantralaya. So our group planned an action outside Mantralaya. We had a list of as many oustees as we could get and we had printed these names one each on separate A4 size papers. We had enrolled students from the JJ School of Arts and we made three teams. We all rushed to the junction facing Mantralaya. One group would draw with chalk something like a plot of land, the other would apply glue, and the last group would paste the names of the oustees here. We were symbolically allotting land to the protestors…we did this through our group called ‘Open Circle’. The protest lasted barely for five minutes because the cops came and arrested us.

VT: Which other activities have you done in the public sphere?

TJ: ‘Looking for Flora’ talked about the supposed migrants having to leave the city. Unicell made a replica of the Flora Fountain, with the figure of Flora missing from it. The fountain travels from one spot to another within Mumbai, looking for Flora who is like the spirit of Mumbai. As we would install it, pavement dwellers and migrants would crowd around us, thinking we are shooting a film. We would have brief interactions with them about what I am doing and why I am doing it. In the ‘Venice of the East’ project, Unicell came up with these mock eviction notices to people whose settlements would come in the way of the hypothetical project of turning Mumbai into the Venice of East. Here, Unicell was mocking the attitude of bureaucrats wanting to turn Mumbai into Shanghai at the cost of discomfort to many a hapless citizen. 

  Unicell sends out eviction notices for turning Bombay into 'Venice of the Eas't

VT: Would you please tell us more about Unicell?

TJ: The task of Unicell is ‘organizing one's self' in the ‘Do It Yourself' style, and to insert aesthetics into the social and political arena. Though this happens entirely in the cultural plane, most of the actions/objects are placed in the public domain.

VT: The devices that Unicell created should be shared with a wider public, I guess. Not everyone visits art galleries…  

    

TJ: I very much wanted to put these gadgets on the railway platforms. Earlier, there were these vitrines on railway stations, in which local shops used to advertise their stuff. My idea was to put the gadgets into those vitrines, so curiosity could be raised and a dialogue could be started. But then they changed the whole game. The vitrines have been replaced by media advertising. And you can’t just buy one screen or hoarding. You have to buy the whole media. So they have conveniently edged out small players. Then I thought of making comic books with my Superheroes, but I haven’t made any progress on that front yet.

VT: There is an element of the absurd in some of your work, which is exciting. You have said somewhere that a lot of your work is like an answer to the absurdities of government bureaucracy.

TJ: That is right.

Commuter Attachment Systems

VT: When you took a short break from making art in the beginning of your career, you said you were going through the predicament what use art is to society. So what conclusion did you come to that you started making art once again?

TJ: I realized that if I’d like things to change, the least I could do is start doing that in my own way, through my calling. I somehow started believing that even an individual could make a dent. That is why ‘Unicell’; even if you are one single entity, you can try to make a difference. Like the city as an organism, with me being one cell in it and me trying to be a malignant cell, you know. (Laughs). So, one can try and make a difference. It is pointless being just angry about things.

VT: You were also doing activism…

TJ: I used to just go and sit in all kinds of meetings and join protests…attend morchas and make posters. But that was not fulfilling enough. Let me explain. I’d say Medha Patkar is my hero absolutely; the way she is into the whole thing. I have to admit I can’t do something like that. So whatever little activism I did ended up being tokenism. I wouldn’t step into it unless I can be totally dedicated to the cause and go the whole way. So I thought maybe I have to do something through art.

VT: Your video ‘Three Bullets for Gandhi’ also raised some pertinent questions.

TJ: Yes. The three bullets – Nathuram Godse shot at Gandhi thrice – imply the killing of Gandhi thrice; once by Godse, once by the State, and once by us. The way Gandhi’s ideals are thrown to the wind. Even how we use Gandhi as an icon is not right. In the video, I have put myself as the three lions – that spit out the bullets and fire – to symbolize the State.  

VT: A lot of public intervention projects finally end up in the gallery space…

TJ: Not at all. So many of my works have existed only in the public domain. I’ve had just two solo shows. One was with the train compartments, showing the Commuter Attachment Systems. The other show was ‘Reconciliation and Truth’, which showed the DIY Monument among other works. ‘Looking for Flora’ was completely in the public domain. Unicell displayed just some photographs of the project in the gallery later. Of course, I need to put stuff in the gallery too. Or else how will I support myself? We don’t have an arts council in India or a kind of social security system so that an artist can do just what he wants all the time. And anyway, why shouldn’t I put work in a gallery? It is not that I supply galleries with editions of works. I do drawings and canvases with my own hand. I enjoy drawing. I love drawing. So I need that kind of an output also. 

DIY Monument

VT: Sure. I’d like to ask you about the trip you made last year to Shanghai on motorcycle. Could you please tell us about ‘Riding Rocinante’?

TJ: I travelled from Mumbai to Shanghai via Sardar Sarovar and Three Gorges Dam. It took 53 days and I covered a distance of 9,624 Km. This was a performative action for a show which was about interaction between the two cultures – India and China. So I made what was like a reverse journey to the ones made by Hiuen Tsang and Fa-Hien. I am also obliquely referring to Che Guevara and Prince Siddhartha, both of whom took up life-changing journeys before coming up with revolutionary ideas. So I was hoping my life would change in some way. Obviously it hasn’t. (Laughs)

VT: It hasn’t?

TJ: Well, I didn’t get a halo or anything. (Laughs). I didn’t become the Buddha. Actually, I was looking forward to direct interaction with people across cultures. Instead of making the work in my studio and shipping it off to Shanghai, I thought of a format where in the process I would actually get to experience how the food, landscape and culture changes as you travel to your destination. I encountered the submerged villages of Narmada valley, the Himalayas, the landscapes of Tibet, the receding waters of Yamdrok Tso, tourists at the Three Gorges Dam, and finally I reached Shanghai. 

VT: There was another very interesting work called ‘Blind Spot’, with the oil trays…

TJ: Ummm…I wasn’t very happy with the way that work turned out. I wanted it to look like a big oil slick, but I could not execute it properly because of logistical reasons. I was comparing the war over oil with the story of Mahabharata. There is this incident in the Mahabharata where Duryodhana visits the Pandavas, who are in exile. They live in this mysterious and delightful palace which has a lot of weird spaces. Duryodhana mistakes the surface of a pond for marble and steps into it. Draupadi laughs at him and mocks him, “The blind son of a blind father”. The work ‘Blind Spot’ had a very tangential reference to Bush senior and Bush junior. And the war was about oil; it was about the whole maya of oil. That is why the black oil in the trays. 

VT: Thanks for sharing with us so much about your work. As a parting note, would you like to give some advice to young artists like me? 

TJ: Yes. Like I was telling you about the short break I took from work in the beginning of my career. It was a period of intense introspection. You should constantly have a re-look at what you are doing. You have to question what you are doing and see where it is leading you.