With the day-to-day visual coverage of the dirty war the US, the UK, Australia, Portugal, Spain and their supporters have got involved in Iraq, we can see how these wars are being waged today. First, cluster bombs with hundreds of little and not-so-little bits of shrapnel in them, mauling and decapitating children; depleted uranium bombs with their tell-tale mushroom clouds leaving mass deaths behind them; bombs let loose on hospitals and markets. We have seen it all.
When this failed, criminals let loose from jails or from the alleyways come out to plunder whatever the bombs have left behind, under the watchful eyes of US marines and their allies. The parallel with Modi?s police in Gujarat is obvious. Evil forces wish to establish their hegemony over humanity by terrorising them, seizing even their livelihood and forcing them to migrate, and marginalising large sections of humanity economically and reducing them to scavenging at best and extinction at worst. This reality has not escaped the art world, and artists have resisted joining the criminals and opportunists in their changing stances with every up and down of the war.
The firm stand they have taken is now to be reflected at the Venice Biennale (the most prestigious art shown in the world) whose theme is to be “Crises and Conflicts Around the Globe” envisaging both dreams and confrontations. As the Director of the Biennale, Francesco Bonami pointed out: ” It is impossible to organise an art exhibition as if it was in bubble.” It is obvious that the questions of the Iraq war will concern artists, as also its connection with the aim of the US to corner the world?s oil and hold the international community to ransom. Not to speak of the evil coalition?s experiments with new weapons of mass destruction.
None of this has escaped the artist?s eye. This was evident from the exhibitions in the capital?s many galleries. The most comprehensive is the exhibition at the ?Art Alive? gallery with 23 works genuinely reflecting the artists? concern over the war and not just related conflicts. Ved Nayar?s work shows the rain of bombs, Gogi Saroj Pal?s the pool of blood, Amitava Das and Subroto Kundu, the clouds of war. Both Sidharth and Dharmendra Rathore explore the lost innocence that the war involved while Yati Jaiswal – one of the most powerful artists to have emerged in this process – Veer Munshi and Apoorva Desai show the link of the war with the profiteering, industrial monopolies and captive markets of consumers. So one can see that the art of resistance is not just an on the spot production. Artists have thought out issues and executed the works accordingly.
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Oil on paper by Veer Munshi |
In the same way, a work on Iraq forms the back-bone of an excellent group show at gallery Alternatives in Gurgaon figuring the works of Jamini Roy, MF Husain, Anupam Sud, Atul Sinha, Sunil Das, Sidharth, Vijaya Bagai, Prabha Shah, Shamshad, Asim Pal, Tapas Biswas, Aparup Mukherjee, Dipendu Bhadra, Vicky Arya, Khemraj and Swapan Das. More such exhibitions are needed.
Beyond Iraq, we have the exhibitions of photographer Sandeep Biswas, the son of the artists Usha and Pulak Biswas, at Gallery Arpana in the Academy of Fine Art and Literature, who was recently in Japan on a Japan Foundation scholarship. Biswas has a remarkable capacity to capture moments that have home truths embedded in them. This is a sure sign that he will go a long way and will one day be a photographer of quality whose work will be sought out and prized.
Two works of his in this exhibition give us promise of this. One is an image of Hiroshima from the sea, a scene of desolation that reflects the price Japan still pays for fascist delusions of grandeur of the past. And the other, a block of workers flats reflected on the window of a pin-ball alley, bringing to mind the rigid and regimented life of the most favoured client state of the US and the escapist make-believe world its people live in today to be able to survive its oppression. It is a haunting image that calls us to confront our helplessness with substance and not just hopes.
This confrontation is not difficult to imagine if one looks at the conversation pieces Sivanesan is exhibiting at Chawla Art Gallery at 1, Mehrauli – Gurgaon road. These latest works of his remind one of the subversive works of KG Subramanyan, telling us that it is human beings who determine the ultimate outcome of all events and that actions speak louder than words.
Technology and brute force may have won the day but their future is less secure than ever before in history, if world reaction to the war is anything to go by. Indeed, our contemporary art reflects this hope and confidence fully.
Ours is a country rich in activity and interaction that has a future worth investing in. And the more I see of our contemporary art, the more convinced I become of this. Indian production and Indian creativity give one the best value for money in the world today.
As long as we can keep up with the times without looking back, Indian art is likely to be the best investment of its kind in the world for some time to come.