Tradition Trauma Transformation Tradition Trauma Transformation N alini M alani Unity Installation view, in Diversity,2003. David Winton Bell Gallery

Representations of Women by

Chitra Ganesh Nalini Malani Nilima Sheikh

Published on the occassion of the exhibition March 26–May 29, 2011

ISBN 978-0-933519-52-7 Copyright © 2011 Curated by Mallica Kumbera Landrus and Jo-Ann Conklin David Winton Bell Gallery, Images copyright © 2011 the artists David Winton Bell Gallery, Brown University Women Representing Women

The constitution of India has always assured equal rights for women. India has had a woman prime minister and president, as well as several state chief ministers (equal in power to US governors). As India emerges as a leading global power, and as the country’s most powerful politician, Sonia Gandhi, president of the ruling Congress Party, happens to be a woman, many would assume the glass ceiling is therefore shattered in this South Asian country. Unfortunately, the ceiling remains. Whereas the law in India requires that women receive equal pay to that of their male counterparts, this seldom happens. The law also guarantees severe punishment for sexual harassment, yet some women become vigilantes in order to protect themselves and others.

As India develops within a global economy, innovations and technologies previously limited to the urban elite, such as sonograms, which identify the gender of an unborn child, are now also available in rural areas. Unfortu- nately, a girl child is still unwanted in most parts of the country. If born at all a girl is often neglected, and basic nutrition and education are denied to many girls. This in a country where images of powerful Goddesses are worshiped daily. The village deity—one who protects the village, its land, and community—is most often a local goddess. The most fervent followers of Durga and Kali are men. Yet, in a country of Goddesses who make power- ful feminist models, female feticide and infanticide continue to exist. The land of mothers still idolizes male heirs and mourns the birth of a daughter. Traditional India is both cosmopolitan, and rural. These are the facts that inform the artworks presented here, which trace the transitions between tradition, trauma, and transformation.

Nilima Sheikh Shamiana, 1996. Installation view, David Winton Bell Gallery

2 3 Nilima Sheikh Shamiana: Chenab 2 Chenab N ilima S heikh Shamiana: Nilima Sheikh’s contribution to the exhibition is a series wide expanse of green is a large body of water (the river of six hanging scrolls entitled Shamiana (1996), referring Chenab); small doodles of color reveal themselves, on to a ceremonial tent.1 Ceremonial tents were a major part closer examination, to be aquatic life. A figure in orange of Mughal and Rajput court culture, as well as temporary holding a pot as she swims across this wide expanse of living quarters for nomads and refugees. They are used to water draws the attention of the viewer. For those from host outdoor marriages, feasts, parties, etc. Thus the tent South Asia, the legend of Sohni and her lover Mahiwal symbolizes movement and dislocation, as well as cere- would be familiar and the iconography of the image

(verso: monies such as weddings conducted within its space, as clear. Sohni was the daughter of a potter, who drew well as home. Easily transported and erected, tents are designs on her father’s pots and transformed them into Shamiana: Meera 2), Shamiana: Meera 2), used at joyous events to identify a space within which works of art. She fell in love with a young man called the celebrating community may come together to sing, Mahiwal (buffalo herder), from Central Asia. As a nomad dance, and perform other ritual obligations. Thus the from Central Asia, Mahiwal would perhaps have lived tent also becomes a symbol of union, and through it, in temporary accommodations such as tents. Their love 1996 love: the union of two individuals, their families, and was unacceptable to Sohni’s family, who married her communities in general. off to another suitor. Here again the ceremony may be Songs sung within ceremonial tents derive from imagined within a shamiana. Despite being married, India’s oral tradition, and evoke stories of love and Sohni continued to meet her lover, who lived across devotion. Following that tradition, Sheikh’s double- the river Chenab. In order to meet him she swam across sided scrolls portray love in private and public realms the strong currents of the river, as he was unwell and of the world. Both of these emotions are expressed in unable to do the same. One night her in-laws changed everyday actions by the female figures represented in her baked pot for an unbaked pot, which resulted in her Sheikh’s scrolls. The figures appear in both flat and drowning in the Chenab. Thus the shamiana may here deep space because of Sheikh’s use of vertical place- symbolize the space within which the lovers met in secret ment that suggests midground and background sections. as well as a space within which she was given away Despite clearly defined contours, symmetry, and tangen- to another suitor; the space is therefore one of joyous tial relationships between the limbs of a figure and the unions as well as dislocation and disassociation. central geometric space, the paintings’ lyrical shapes Born in 1945 in to parents who were both and pattern give them a strong sense of motion. The doctors, Nilima Sheikh read history at the University of landscape surrounding the female figures adds to the Delhi before entering the University in Baroda for an narrative element of Sheikh’s works. Child birth, devo- M FA in painting. Although in the 1960s the Faculty of tion for one’s god or lover, the act of cleaning one’s Fine Arts in Baroda was identified with modernism, she home—the stuff of everyday lives—are all depicted developed an interest in the history and traditions of with color, abstraction, and figurative idioms to convey pre-modern . She explored the miniature style emotion and energy. of painting by visiting and watching miniaturists paint. Shamiana: Chenab 2 (left) is dominated by a large From them she also learned to make her own materials, green expanse that gradually blends into browns at the brushes and ground colors. The works exhibited are on bottom of the painting (denoting land), while reaching primed calico cloth painted to the point of saturation an intense blue at the very top (expressing the sky). The with casein tempera. To prepare this material, Sheikh

4 1 The six scrolls are the sides of the tent. Sheikh’s piece also includes a canopy that is not displayed here. 5 Shamiana: Birth 1 Birth N ilima S heikh Shamiana: 5 Birth N ilima S heikh Shamiana: (verso: (verso: Shamiana: Home 2), Shamiana: Home 2), Shamiana: Journey), 1996 1996

used curdled milk-glue to which earth and mineral The double-sided paintings expand into a grand formal processes. Hers is an art of patiently looking through var- old, some things that flow together compassionately. powders were later applied. display of representational space that intensifies the ious methods, materials, forms, techniques and her own Indeed this is a philosophical departure from any kind As our eye moves through and around Shamiana experience of a place. The closest compositional com- surroundings, as well as historical and literary texts to of established comfortable modern or contemporary we are aware that every plane, every view, even those at parisons to these panoramic layered narratives are the find those of special value. Through traditional symbols format. In accepting and incorporating the traditional various angles of perspective, are directly addressed to cave paintings at Ajanta and Dunhuang. It does not take Sheikh represents contemporary everyday life. There is in her works, Sheikh does not reject modernism but the gaze. Simultaneously, the paint surface, built up in one long to appreciate and share Sheikh’s interest in a keen interest in letting all the disparate elements that rather develops and articulates her own idiom. transparent or semi-transparent washes, advances as a traditional art forms and techniques. The central aspect are around her find new, fresh, or unpredicted orders. It material presence, delicate but insistent in its buildup. of Sheikh’s art is the interconnectedness of her creative is an intuitive combination of something new, something

6 7 Nalini Malani N alini M alani Stills from Unity in Diversity, 2003 Nalini Malani is a prolific artist of incredible energy the phrase “unity in diversity,” used to characterize videos, are narrative instruments as well as vehicles for and power. She creates honest, intense, cathartic, and post-colonial India. This state-created motto supported pure affect. They compel one to register the conse- uniquely imaginative works that speak directly to the the foundation of a secular modern democracy that quence of blurring sound and image. Malani creates art human psyche. Malani has often reflected on questions arose from distinct and varied parts of a British colony. with urgency. Her idiosyncratic drawings move back of equality: How far have we come in solving gender- Malani contrasts this early painting with the bru- and forth between abstract meanderings of the hand based violence? Is equality still an illusion? Malani tality and violence of contemporary communal riots, and representational musings of the mind. Her figures combines painting, photography, and video, to revisit particularly the riots of 2002 in Gujarat. It is hard to morph and dissolve, emerge and submerge, always political turmoil, such as the and watch flesh—representing the victims and the land— confident and with a focused purpose. There is nothing in 1947. A great number of women and children quite literally being torn apart in the video. Such com- random about Nalini Malani’s concepts. — on both sides of the border — became targets in the munal riots in India, and persistent tensions between inter-communal violence that followed partition. Malani religious groups, belie the notion of a tolerant India. was barely a year old in 1947, but her family’s decision However, many, including the artist, chose to live in this to leave home in Pakistan and move across the border diverse country, where the persistence of general commu- to India meant a refugee status for her and her family. nal harmony amid occasional outbreaks of disharmony These early traumatic moments, relived through family suggests an essentially accommodating nation, one that and community retellings, are embedded in Malani’s is capable of living with and absorbing difference. very being, fostering ideological debates and a dialogue Memory: Record/Erase (1996) is Malani’s interpre- that forces the viewer to address socio-political pres- tation of Bertolt Brecht’s “The Job.” An animated critique sures and gender-based violence. of gender roles, the video is narrated through the pro- Violent communal riots have become a distinct cess of drawing and erasure on a parchment, which feature of communalism in modern India. Although all represents the memory membrane of the protagonist. in society suffer, women and children are a large part of The drawings, texts, and sounds narrate the story of a the list of innocent victims. Malani’s videos are severe woman who takes on the persona of a man in order to and demanding of the viewer. Through her work, Malani work as a chowkidar (night watchman). She is a widow, explores the power of sound and art to reveal a hard with two children, and a “wife” to complete her disguise. reality. The two works shown in the exhibition employ The point is that anyone, man or woman, can do any type single-channel videos showing linear narratives. In of work. Male and female should be able to act in private Unity in Diversity (2003) a seating arrangement, display and/or public in any type of manner. Despite being a of photographs, and area lighting evoke a domestic set- success at her job, when the woman is finally exposed, ting into which the viewer enters. A reproduction of sexism prevents her from reclaiming it. Society and cul- Raja Ravi Verma’s painting Galaxy of Musicians (1893) ture create conditions that require people to assume is projected onto the wall, within a large frame. Images of their “right” roles, defined solely by their gender, and women holding guns and of dissected flesh overlay the not by their abilities or interests. The view that women painting, in combination with a soundtrack of gunshots, should perform only feminine work lingers. screams, and a narratives written from the front lines. Through her work Malani thus captures the symp- The eleven women depicted in the painting represent tomatic moments of social crises by restaging them in different geographic and cultural parts of India. Their visual form. The strange voiceovers and sounds create differences unify and represent one nation, and portray an uncanny resonance. Her works, and especially her

8 9 1996 N alini M alani Stills from Memory: Record/Erase,

10 Chitra Ganesh Chitra Ganesh How we do at the end of world, 2011 A generation younger than Sheikh and Malani, Chitra to intimate private moments and connections with other- Ganesh received her BA in comparative literature and ness. There is something ephemeral about experiencing semiotics from Brown University and her M FA from these works that engage with memory and melancholia . She has spent many years navi- on a completely different plain than our reality. Her gating the cultural terrain of living within the Indian works are simultaneously easy and difficult to look at. diaspora in , where she was born in 1975 to Drawn in by their psychedelic colors and pop aesthetic, Indian immigrant parents. Ganesh draws freely from viewers soon realize that all is not goodness and light. both the East and the West, in both media and content. A feeling of discomfort sets in as one feels compelled Her works impressively engage with and embrace chal- to look at every multiple-armed female nude, dismem- lenges of the diaspora. Her works, though nourished by bered body part, bleeding torso, and mutilated figure, two cultures, do not involve dichotomies such as past as well as depictions of feminine power expressed versus present, or India versus North America, but rather through self-pleasuring. exist in a space somewhere between where memory, mel- By exposing her women, Ganesh also exposes the ancholia, dreams, and fantasy bleed and blend together. underlying objectifying narrative of this “exotic other.” Filtered through her personal sensibility, works emerge The viewer is forced to face the sexualized nature of featuring female figures that portray time, distance, loss, Western perception of the Asian woman. Simultaneously, violence, and sexuality, often humorously. the viewer is also led into questioning the time and Ganesh has had an ongoing love-hate relationship events portrayed, and the role played by the figures in with Amar Chitra Katha, a popular Indian comic series the circumstances that surround them. Ganesh’s women that focuses on religious and mythological narratives. do not assume the subservient roles reserved for them For generations, children in India and the diaspora in the Amar Chitra Katha, but rather act as independent have been raised with these comics, which are intend- powerful heroines. These women may be demonic or at ed to culturally educate the South Asian population. the same time, Devi, the great goddess, wielding her many The characters in these comics provide accepted mod- weapons in her multiple arms. Reclaiming sexuality, els of nationalism, private and public behavior, good Ganesh’s female characters do not represent the ideal versus evil, male versus female, and sexuality. In her sexual fantasy of a patriarchal society. In Melancolia: digital collages, Ganesh combines female characters The Thick of Time (2010) a woman with a vulva-shaped from the series with her own drawings and texts, offer- rupture in her stomach reveals the universe within. In ing alternate expressions to the prescribed models of Sorrow’s Refrain, Ganesh reworks Albrecht Durer’s the comic series. Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly famous etching Melencolia I, incorporating and trans- Delights is clearly one of her many direct references. forming numerous elements from the original — Close examinations of the space within the frames of including the figure, scale, hourglass, rainbow, ladder, her works reveal a dreamscape of earthly, heavenly, dog, and keys. The seated figure is now nude and ma- and demonic bodies. ny-armed; keys that hung from the figure’s belt now In her recent works, such as How we do at the end hang from a piercing at her hip; the globe on the floor of the world (left), the comics intersect with her interest has become a fiery-tailed planet, birthed from a disem- in science fiction. The images compel the audience to bodied pair of legs; the star is a spiderweb, and “Durer’s engage with Ganesh’s visuals, which then allows access solid” (a polyhedron, seemingly of stone) is, in Ganesh’s

12 13 Melencolia: The Thick of Time,of Thick 2010 Chitra Ganesh Melencolia: The Refrain, 2010 Chitra Ganesh Melencolia: Sorrow’s

version, a crystal. To this the artist adds a needle with conceives her own unique world that conflicts with the Contemporary artists in India and the diaspora abroad use various tech- intravenous line in one of the figure’s right arms; an real world, resulting in strange and even absurd figures niques to revisit pre-colonial and post-colonial themes of complexity that infinity sign drawn on her inner thigh; and a multi- and gestures. Using comic book images works well breasted/eyed torso with blood dripping from its blade- within this alternate world. Depending on how we may represent cross-cultural global issues. The exhibition, though concerned like arms. In these works one finds the banal, the sublime, interpret or deconstruct Ganesh’s reality or fantasy, her with India, does not limit interpretation of the works to South Asian issues. and the transcendent all working and existing together. works certainly resonate with many viewers. The works Artists were chosen for the exhibition for the originality of their work. Thus Life, death, and birth are here synchronous with women provide a whirlpool of cosmic energy that pulls many of and their sexuality. us into periodically intriguing vortexes. Ganesh inhabits the works represent the individual artists, and are visually exciting, thought- The concept of time in Ganesh’s work is similar a space that meanders through perceptual systems and provoking and informative. They are timely and personal, expressing ideas to the time construct of the ancient world. The inner narrative conventions, leaving a charged footprint in that include all that has passed in the artists lives and the world at large. world of fantasy and mythology is meshed with reality, art informed by feminism. Her expansive interrogation everyday ideas, blurring all boundaries, and moving of the other includes questions of` post-colonialism, Mallica Kumbera Landrus between the constructs of time and space. Like parts of migration, citizenship, and sexuality. The content of her figures, time is dismembered from the single struc- her works is prescient in the way it opens a wider ture and then arranged into pieces, wandering in space frame of political reference and incites the urgency of as the past, present and future all overlap. Ganesh critical recall.

14 15 Chitra Ganesh was born in Brooklyn, Nalini Malani was born in in Nilima Sheikh was born in 1945 in , where she currently lives 1946 and lives in . She studied New Delhi, India. She currently lives and works. She graduated from art at the Sir J. J. School of Art, Mumbai, and works in New Delhi and Baroda. Brown University in 1996 with a BA and in through a French Govern- Between 1962 and 1965 she studied in Comparative Literature and Art ment Scholarship for Fine Arts. Equally history at Delhi University. She studied Semiotics. Ganesh attended the well known for her paintings and video painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Skowhegan School of Painting and installations, Malani has exhibited Maharaja Sayaji Rao University in Sculpture, and received her M FA from internationally, with solo exhibitions Baroda, where she received her M FA Columbia University in 2002. Her work at the Irish , in 1971. Nilima Sheikh has lectured has been exhibited locally and inter- Dublin; Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, extensively on Indian art both locally nationally, including at the Brooklyn Lausanne; Peabody Essex Museum, in India and internationally, as well as Museum, Queens Museum of Art, Salem, MA; the of being part of various Indian artists’ The , Bronx Museum of Contemporary Art, NY; and the Prince delegations abroad. Her paintings are Art, White Columns, Momenta Art, of Wales Museum, Mumbai. She has part of permanent collections in India Apex Art, and PS1/MOMA (all in New been included in group exhibitions at as well as international collections such York), and internationally at the ZKM, the Serpentine Gallery and the Tate as Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Germany; MOCA, Shanghai; Saatchi Modern, London; IVAM, Valencia; Australia, and the New Walk Museum Museum, London; Kunsthalle Exner- the National Museum of Modern Art and Art Gallery, Leicester, United grasse, Vienna; Fondazione Sandretto Tokyo; and in international exhibitions, Kingdom. Her work has been widely re Rebaudengo, Turin; IVAM, Valencia; including the 51st and 52nd Venice exhibited in solo and group exhibitions Spazio Oberdan, Milan; , the Istanbul Biennale (2003), in India and abroad, including at the Contemporary Arts Centre, and in 2011 the Asia-Pacific Triennale (2002), of Modern Art, Mumbai; at the Prince of Wales Museum, Mumbai. the Third Kwangju Biennale and the National Gallery of Modern Art, India She is the recipient of numerous grants Seventh Havana Biennale (both in International Centre, and the Kiran and residencies, including awards in 2000), and the First Johnnesburg Nadar Museum of Art, all in New Delhi; 2009 from the New York Foundation for Biennale (1995). Her work is held in Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, the Arts and Printed Matter, and in collections around the globe including Australia; Shanghai Art Museum, 2010 from the Art Matters Foundation, at the Museum of Modern Art and Asia Shanghai; ARCO Madrid; IVAM and Casa Lower East Side Printshop Special Society, both in New York; Burger Asia, both in Valencia; Kunstmuseum, Editions Residency, and the Joan Collection, Hong Kong; National Gallery Bern; Grosvenor Gallery, London; the Mitchell Award for Painters & Sculptors. of Modern Art, Bombay; British Asia Society, New York; Seattle Art Her work is represented in collections Museum, London; Queensland Art Museum; Asian Art Museum of San of the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Gallery, Brisbane; Stedelijk Museum, Francisco; and in international Museum of American Art, Brooklyn Amsterdam; Wilfredo Lam Center, exhibitions including the Third Asian Museum, Devi Art Foundation, Havana; and the Peabody Essex Biennale, Dhaka (1986); First Johannes- Deutsche Bank, the Saatchi Collection, Museum, Salem. burg Biennale (1995); and Asia-Pacific and the Burger Collection. Triennale of Contemporary Art, Brisbane, Australia (1996).

WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION

Melancolia: The Thick of Time, 2010 Memory: Record/Erase, 1996 Shamiana, 1996 Lambda print, 68¾" x 51¼" Single channel video; 10 minutes Six hanging scrolls, casein tempera on Lent by the artist Courtesy of the artist and Walsh Gallery, Chicago canvas; 8'4" x 5'10" each Queensland Art Gallery Foundation, Melencolia: Sorrow’s Refrain, 2010 Unity in Diversity, 2003 purchased 1996. Lambda print, 68¾" x 51¼" Single channel video installation with sound, Lent by the artist gold frame, framed photograph; 7 minutes Courtesy of the artist and Walsh Gallery, Chicago How we do at the end of the world, 2011 Lambda print, 68¾" x 51¼" Lent by the artist

Cosmic Butterfly, 2011 M alcolm Grear Designers Site-specific, mixed media wall drawing,

approx. 14' x 22' Design

Right and cover: Chitra Ganesh Cosmic Butterfly, 2011. 16 Installation view, David Winton Bell Gallery