ART & THE MATTER OF IDENTITY

K G Subramanyan

When an octogenarian like me is asked to talk on an occasion like this he is likely to rummage a little in his rag-bag of memories. You will kindly bear with me. I came to Baroda in 1951 as a young teacher in the newly instituted Faculty of Fine Arts of the M.S. University. It had started functioning the year before in a small residential building within a large ground opposite the Baroda Museum. Ravishankar Raval was certainly one of its early mentors. This was inevitable. Ravibhai's position in the cultural scene of Gujarat was at that time comparable to that of Nandalal Bose in Bengal. They were both trying to invigorate the pads of artistic creativity in each region and give them new horizons in their individual ways. In this Ravibhai, with his highly influential cultural periodical Kumar, reached out to a larger public and was an institution by himself.

I am not sure about what the basic contribution of Ravibhai was, to the initial teaching philosophy of the Faculty. But I remember to have seen him once or twice on the campus in those early days - a singularly handsome man with an aristocratic look, dressed in immaculate white khadi and sporting a white Gandhi cap, soft-spoken, un-aggressive, easy to approach.

Having grown up with strongly nationalist ideas, he may not have fully appreciated the new institution's so-called modern, even global, approach. So when the institution grew and its activities diversified, he was seen less and less on the campus. Nevertheless he did keep alive a loose relationship. I remember his asking me to write an article on Benodebehari Mukherjee for Kumar, later in the day. I wrote it in English; its Gujarati translation appeared in Kumar first, before its English text was printed elsewhere. Later still, sometime in the early seventies, when I was the Dean of the faculty, and had spelt out some of my ideas to the press in an interview, Ravibhai wrote to me an affectionate and appreciative letter. I have unfortunately lost the letter. Nor do I remember clearly what I had said in the interview. I have, however, discovered the draft of a letter I wrote to him to follow, which I will share with you for whatever it is worth. Obviously, he had slightly misread some of what I had said 2nd I was moved to clarify. The letter is dated 17th August, 1972. Dear Ravibhai, I am happy to get your letter. The views I have expressed in the interview are the views I have always held; only I am a little clearer about them now.

I feel our problem has been that we have tried to contact the norms of the contemporary west or the norms of our historical past; we have rarely tried to contact our contemporary environment, and find out its norms. The problem is not new; it dates from your own generation — which dilly-dallied with the academic manner of the west and courtly manner of the miniaturists; it has continued into our own except for the fact that it dilly-dallies now with minimal abstraction and tantric diagrams. When I am pleading for a contact with the environment I am pleading for something more basic; not one at the level of languages and manners in vogue at a time, here or elsewhere; but an awareness of the physical and cultural facts around us in our time and its compulsions which will give a new rationale to our work. This will probably result in a work that is as different from the work that has gone before us, as the miniatures were themselves different from the work of the Ajanta caves; it may even find parallels in the work of the modern west, as our miniatures have parallels in the Gothic miniatures in their time or as the Amaravati reliefs have parallels in certain Graeco-Roman reliefs. So really speaking, I am pleading for the discovery of this rationale by artists in their own individual ways, irrespective of what subsequent parallelisms might result.

So I will not like to be construed as an advocate of cultural puritanism. I do think that there are many things which are part of our thought and environment today which we owe to the west and gainfully so. So it is not a straight choice between East or West. My view is that the Indian artist should view works of art, Indian or Western, in their contextual propriety (not by the external look or manner) and if he does so, it will help him to find out a suitable vocabulary for his present context.

After all, when we know that structures as conceptually different like the Taj Mahal and the Shore Temple of Mahabalipuram are both environmentally appropriate in their different ways, why should I think that a modern architect will not produce something different from both these and still environmentally appropriate? But I believe that the appropriateness will depend on how he reads his contexts right, not in fiddling about with modalities. To amplify what I have said I am mailing you the typed script of a lecture I delivered in Santiniketan a year ago (which they have later published).

Let me mention again that it warms my heart to know that you took interest in my published interview; I hope this finds you in good health and you will visit Baroda as you promise. We want you to come and see what we are doing at present. With my regards, Sincerely, KG Subramanyan

This was written thirty-five years ago. The issues have dated. From what I have tried to explain it appears that Ravibhai had probably mis­ read my plea for cultivating an awareness of our cultural context as a plea for stylistic indigenism. Those days there was a lobby for indigenism within and without. This was a post-colonial phenomenon. All of you are familiar with the background. First the colonists - (political like in India; cultural, like in Iran or elsewhere) devalued the cultural antecedents of the country in question. Then they introduced it to their own cultural forms they rated superior. This threw the colonials into a state of confusion, estranged from one and stranger to another. But a resurgent section of the colonials learnt to see their antecedents in a new light and draw fresh resource from them. Initially this had a kind of political colour. They tried to raise a kind of cultural counterforce that would withstand or overcome the colonist's attempts at their cultural alienation. Out of this arose the concept of an indigenist style, which was a kind of fabrication and largely emblematic; often a conglomerate of various features drawn from different categories of practice.

An enlightened section of the colonists themselves gave support to this with their own kind of ratiocination and re-exposition. They were a little ashamed of the official readings of our cultural scene. Sir George Birdwood's preposterous comment on the aesthetics of a Buddhist icon in a public lecture in London and the subsequent formation of the India League is known to all of you. Birdwood himself was an admirer of Indian artisanry though the imagery of Indian sculpture bewildered him. But such uneven appreciation can be seen amongst the cultivated Indians too; even those who strove later to demonstrate the depth and gravity of Indian art's contribution to the world art scene. Abanindranath (Tagore) was not a great admirer of Indian sculpture to start with, even though his Japanese friend Okakura Kakuzo considered Indian sculpture as a unique pinnacle of achievement in world art. And Auguste Rodin (whose work Abanindranath admired) had written an effusive panegyric on the Nataraja and Abanindranath was aware of it. It may be that these educated his understanding with the passage of time. He does mention in one of his Vageswari lectures how sometimes foreign observers respond more fully to our art objects than we tend to do. Both Abanindranath and his uncle Rabindranath were not great admirers of the celebrated murals of Ajanta either; they found their compositions too overcrowded; like some foreign observers they found they were afflicted by horror vaccui (to mean fear of empty spaces) Nandalal refers to this in a discussion with Kanai Samanta while explaining that concepts of space can differ from work to work, even tradition to tradition. I am mentioning all this to say that even if one is open minded and free from culturat prejudice, it may take him some time and effort to see each art form in its functional propriety and context.

In any case, Indian and foreign scholars unravelled at their own pace various aspects of our art tradition. Its sequence was doubtless influenced by the shift in the interest of foreign Indophiles. First the Moghul miniatures; then the murals of Ajanta; then the lyrical narratives of Rajasthan and the Punjab hills; then the so-called folk and village arts; then esoteric abstractions; and more recently the kitschy graphics of the urban bazaar. This unravelling has brought to light that the body of Indian art is not strictly homogeneous. It has many categories of practice, many patterns of intention$. It has diverse thematic and technical inputs; even cross-liaisons with sister forms outside its territorial borders. Taken together it is a world by itself. Naturally, a sensitive artist wanted to scrutinize each form and understand the working context of each. Nandalal Bose's interest in understanding the language system of each and their serviceability in the living context exemplifies this.

His enquiries liberated the outlooks of his illustrious successors - Benodebehari Mukherjee and Ramkinker Baiz. With better insight into the working structure of the art practices of the past they were able to take advantage of them in their readings of their living context and devise their own methods of representation with unhesitant ease. The point I was trying to make in my interview and my letter to Ravibhai should be seen in the light of this. Each way of making has its own way of seeing. Duly read and understood each art form contributes to, or adds a new dimension to, this way of seeing.

This makes certain classifications based on styles of practice redundant. You will recall that at one time our public art exhibitions had three sections, Western/Indian/Modern, on the basis of old time workshop identities. But in today's art practice, they are not mutually exclusive. They have luckily disappeared. Binodebehari's or Ramkinker's works transcend these divisions. They draw resources from wherever they choose, East or West, from old forms or new, so long as they transjigure the image of their immediate context or add a new angle or dimension to their vision. So their works have a local identity; and another that goes beyond this and gains a kind of universality.

A year back, I went on a two weeks' visit to Kerala, where I had spent my school-going years. Surely, some experiences of those early years should have moulded my tastes and choices. But I have not been there for the last sixty years (except for one or two flying visits). This long absence had undermined my confidence to converse in Malayalam. And when people asked me whether I was not driven there by nostalgia, I could not readily say, yes. I had once seen some enthralling visuals of Kerala country-side in one of Aravindan's films and had a momentary feeling close to it. But it did not last. And that was not so special. I get such a feeling when I leave any place I have got used to even for a short while. I am prone to have affairs with places easily. You could call me a Casanova of locations.

In any case, I had occasion to interact there with a group of young artists. Some of them wanted to know how much my Kerala connection contributed to my identity. I could not say for sure. If it had it was too internal for me to talk about. Or too external. Like a snail canjiot see the markings of the shell on its back. I will have to leave it to the outsider to read it and decide.

It seemed to me that there is^strong desired amongst them to keep close^heir roots and locations. This urges their poets to write in their local dialects, their novelists to recast the present in the mould off an age-old myth or legend. But their bookshops have translations of works from all over the world; they are informed of the global scene. I could only think aloud. In everything you do you are initially alone with yourself. You are anchored in your location. Then even your public concerns are private. But a work invariably grows out of it. It has its roots in the surrounding earth but it branches are in the skies. Here it reaches out to others; some perhaps more fully than others. This out­ reach that exceeds its basic message is what makes it last. Both in the local and global scene.

The configuration of the local is no more steady and permanent. Under the forces released by economic globalization it is changing rapidly as its controlling strands are weakening or disappearing altogether. People are moving from place to place. Kinship ties are loosening or getting complicated. Social and religious observances are changing character; what once tried to unite social groups, now tries to divide them, even to the extent of fomenting confrontation. So regardless of certain continuous geo-physical factors the old constancies of cultural location no more exist. Besides the information channels are bombarding the public with cultural information coming from all over the world; which you could, till the other day, discover only by laborious travel. Even if you are not physically uprooted from where you are, they do affect your conceptual bases. And in the cases of socially supported art practices this mobility and exposure unsettles their roots, and renders their existence precarious. So today's local is not the same as it was fifty years ago. Especially in the commodity sphere.

But in the area of languages or linguistic communication there is a more stable sense of location. Even despite the changes mentioned already, language is a big binding force between speaker and hearei) writer and reader; and since the bonds vary greatly in intimacy and character, it fosters many sub-streams or cultural locations. Globalisation has not wiped out the variety of languages or homogenized them; if at all even small group dialects have / grown into full languages with the increase in the numbers and sophistication of users. Even languages that have wide, cross- continental currency like English, Spanish, Portuguese (for instance), have resolved themselves into sub-lingual groups in Britain, USA, Canada, Africa, India or South America following differences in content and usage. The need to preserve an intimate communicational nexus naturally supports the formation of such compact locations.

But visual art today functions in an indefinite location. Although an artist puts a lot of planning and effort into making an art object, the viewer is relatively a stranger to its message. Even the qualities of its image, in the absence of a common cultural background or the instabilities within the one that is. So in today's world art is becoming more of a commodity and less of a communication, for all the fan-fare and publicity that accompanies the launch or the opening of an exhibition. Most art objects do not any more belong to a compact cultural location, that closeted the artist and the viewer within a well- knit functional parameter like in traditional times.

So the artist and his work have to be introduced and their perspectives described. Naturally, a lot of art writing today is elaborate and many - sided. They tend to go beyond discussing the image and content of the art object or its historical position as it used to formerly. It now, seeks to explain how they have been structured: how their components orchestrate and serve a total scheme, and where they over-spill. Some of it wants to demonstrate how a potential viewer will reinterpret it or in today's words, deconstruct it, in the background of his knowledge and sensibilities. Another kind wants to show how its signs and symbols are part of a larger semiotic field, and so have a trail of meanings floating behind them and doctoring their implications.

I am mentioning all these to show that to gain an identity an artist or his worl^ need to have around them a field of implications or, let us say, a pabhamandala. Since this is not provided today by attendant circumstances like a place, purpose, lore, beliefs, etc. shared by the artist and the viewing public but depends on each individual artist's proclivities and choices, these identities are many. These individuals may also have a group identity in so far as they stand (of their own accord) with a group or are seen as part of it by the public. This may depend on issues that exercise them like, say, gender conflicts, emerging sexual mores etc. etc. Or an iconoclastic attitude that forces them to dethrone, even desecrate, established notions and symbols (by making a pisscross, dung Madonna, cod piece Ganesh, self- tormenting Sabari).

But group identities may emerge from the nature of an art practice which involves the collaboration of many specialists. This is not new; it happened at all times. In earlier days, arts related to architecture and the fabrication of ritual and functional objects gave rise to a production line - that moved from a preceptor to designer to fabricator to finisher, involving^whole hierarchy of skills. Closer to us, powerful communication media like film and television have a multilayered production set up moving from script to performance to filming and recording to editing; here each stage is important and crucial; and can make or mar a statement. So today's communication industry is a collaborative effort of many accomplished professionals, regardless of whether their objectives are small or big - meaning whether they intend to just entertain; or instruct or enlarge and enrich one's experiences and educate one's sense of values.

Individual artists, who serve a clientele who are not too concerned about the inner content or potential of a work as much as their enticing exterior to dramatise the atmosphere of their private or public haunts, also take recourse to the production line that ropes together various presentational skills. The artist works like a designer and makes a miniature model or maquette. He appropriates into these various cultural ingredients and is cannibalistic of sorts. Then he leaves this to a battery of assistants to blow up and embellish. This he works over and signs. He prefaces these with a colourful statement of intentions and strategies, although the work stands aloof from these. This genre, if you can call it one, is a flourishing field today for appropriation, engraftment and multi-cultural overlays. Their identities are comparable to those of the old time artisan groups that surprised or regailed the public with their fabricatory expertise and presentational innovation. The world art shows are today full of many categories of such sleight of hands, even sleight of mind.

Generally speaking, in today's scene, a lot of effort goes into devising newer and newer ways of saying a thing. So we have now a flourishing school of languages, an outstanding tower of Babel. Its attractions are irresistible. But from time to time you feel the need for a renewed effort at seeing, unearthing the living environment from below this mountainous heap of stereotypes, visual conceits and quotations. And planning new encounters that will help us to reinvent the world.

24.02.2007

(4th Ravishanker Rawal Memorial lecture delivered at Gujarati Sahitya Parishad, Ahmedabad on 24th February 2007)