India’s Rockefeller Artists India’s Rockefeller Artists An Indo-US Cultural Saga KISHORE SINGH 2 | India’s Rockefeller Artists India’s Rockefeller Artists | 3 India’s Table of Contents NOTE FROM THE CURATOR ................................................................................6 Rockefeller INDIA’S ROCKEFELLER ARTISTS The Twentieth Century Snapshot .................................................................11 Artists Fuelling Philanthropy ....................................................................................16 Early Nudges for a Visual Arts Grant ...........................................................19 Council on Economic and Cultural Affairs...................................................22 Copyright: 2017 DAG Modern, New Delhi The JDR 3rd Fund/Asian Cultural Programme ..........................................22 Porter McCray...............................................................................................27 The Issue of the Culture Vultures .................................................................29 From the Heady 1960s and 1970s to a Slowing Down from the 1980s ........33 The Experience of the Grant ........................................................................36 The Change of Guard at the Fund ...............................................................36 11 Hauz Khas Village, New Delhi 110016, India The Asian Cultural Council ..........................................................................39 Tel: +91 11 46005300 • Email: [email protected] And, in Balance .............................................................................................40 58, Dr. V. B. Gandhi Marg, K.S. KULKARNI: Taking a Long Step Forward.......................................................44 Kala Ghoda, Fort, Mumbai 400001, India KRISHEN KHANNA: Visual Diarist ........................................................................64 Tel: +91 22 49222700 • Email: [email protected] S.H. RAZA: Gestural Abstraction ..............................................................................86 The Fuller Building, 41 East 57 Street, Suite 708 V.S. GAITONDE: Meditative Quietness ..................................................................112 New York, NY 10022 • Tel: +1 212-457-9037 AKBAR PADAMSEE: Existential Sorrow ...............................................................132 Email: [email protected] AVINASH CHANDRA: Art Deeply Sensuous ........................................................154 Website: www.dagmodern.com NATVAR BHAVSAR: The Freedom to Paint .........................................................174 JYOTI BHATT: An Observer Rather than a Participant ........................................202 K.G. SUBRAMANYAN: Between the Real and the Imaginary ..............................226 PROJECT EDITOR: Kishore Singh ADI DAVIERWALLA: To the Heart of the Subject ................................................252 EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Ritu Vajpeyi Mohan TYEB MEHTA: Of Apocalyptic Possibilities ..........................................................264 production editor: Abhilasha Ojha KIRAN AND SATISH GUJRAL: Crafting a New Art ...........................................282 PROJECT RESEARCH & ARTIST TIMELINES: HAKU SHAH: Master of Cultural Anthropology ..................................................300 Poonam Baid, Krittika Kumari, Simer Dhingra, Vrinda Agrawal ARUN BOSE: As the Eye Sees or Memory Retains ................................................314 DESIGN: Durgapada Chowdhury PARITOSH SEN: Mirroring Lives ..........................................................................330 PHOTOGRAPHY OF ARTWORKS: Durgapada Chowdhury and Saurabh Khandelwal RAM KUMAR: Structural Abstraction ...................................................................350 PRINT: Archana Advertising Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi BAL CHHABDA: Of Cinematic Shadows ..............................................................372 VINOD DAVE: Creating Frozen Images that Melt Away .......................................386 All rights are reserved under international copyright conventions. No part of this catalogue BHUPEN KHAKHAR: Asserting a Gay Sexuality .................................................404 may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means, electronic and mechanical, REKHA RODWITTIYA: Feminist Trysts in Art.....................................................424 including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, AND THOSE THAT FOLLOWED .......................................................................442 without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Addendum I: List of Grantees ..................................................................................444 Addendum II: Countrywide Grants .........................................................................450 ISBN: 978-93-81217-67-2 Endnotes ...................................................................................................................452 Bibliography ..............................................................................................................454 4 | India’s Rockefeller Artists India’s Rockefeller Artists | 5 Note from the Curator When first the idea of a project that involved an exhibition It was, therefore, not only metro-centric, there appeared excitement of practicing artists in New York specifically and prove to be an important pivot for those who benefitted of works by the grantees of the John D. Rockefeller III no way for its director, the venerable and hugely popular the US generally. from the grant. Fund (and its later iteration as the Asian Cultural Council) Porter McCray, to understand the nuances of the art scene suggested itself, enthusiasm was somewhat lacking. A fund in even Calcutta (now Kolkata), or, indeed, Madras (now The Fund seemed to be on adrenalin at the time, and to What that takeaway was provides the crux of this curatorial or fellowship or scholarship by its very nature is limiting. Chennai), leave alone centres such as Baroda, Lucknow or study it only from the perspective of the visual arts would exercise and the reason for this exhibition. It also documents While an institution or foundation giving such grants Jaipur. And since McCray, as also the Fund, depended on a be to take a jaundiced view of its overall aim of exposing the history of what can now be seen to have been an may feel justified in documenting its work and those of its network of friendly associates to recommend the names of to Indian art historians, archaeologists and others associated important and fruitful relationship. Its history provides an grantees, for a gallery and as a curator the reason was more artists whose work might be considered worthy of the Fund’s with the fields of music, dance, theatre and other disciplines, interesting narrative that resonates with the somewhat amorphous. What would we achieve through such a process, ambitions, it promoted, to a large extent, a sense of coterie, the developments and nuances of their counterparts in guarded relationship between the two countries not entirely and why expend labour over what was, necessarily another a network of the like-minded or, at least, those who tended America. Not only was the Fund engaging with scholars comfortable with one another. institution’s body of work? to hang around together. That it included within this fold and participants from these diverse fields, it was equally some of the most respected names in Indian art is, therefore, engaged with similar peer groups from countries across Asia The challenge was not so much in writing this history – True, the JDR 3rd Fund was an important one for Indian a credit to either McCray’s screening process or the initial – arguably among the largest such programmes undertaken which, for most part, was exciting and full of surprises – as artists in the 1960s and 1970s, when India was, to a selection that led to recommendations of the names of at any one time in the world. If, therefore, the representation much as in understanding the visual history that required large extent, cut off from the world, if not politically or approved grantee-artists. of Indian artists across India was not as comprehensive as representation. There is no gainsaying that works from the geographically, at least through a shortage of funds and it should ideally have been, that shortcoming was not on period of the grant would be extremely difficult to acquire foreign exchange that made international travel prohibitive But from an art-historical perspective, the selection was account of intent as much as a limitation of knowledge and for the purposes of the exhibition, so this book has aimed for most. And though several important Indian artists had subjective, limiting, and necessarily flawed, a few jigsaw human resource. to document the range of an artist’s works, but particularly travelled to the US thanks to its largesse, the Fund was pieces against what was a churn as modernists sought to those from around the period of the grant. What the unlikely to have provided a comprehensive, or inclusive, find contexts and resolutions that were ‘local’ instead of It becomes evident on hindsight that this engagement exhibition may have as a lacunae is more than adequately selection and overview of the art scenario in India. In the being delivered from the West. India had a great tradition between Indian artists and the US provided them great space compensated in this publication. country, the art infrastructure