Taking A Look At Art Of The Future

I am writing from the venue of the Asian Social Forum in Hyderabad, with people from all over the world participating in it. Naturally, at such a gathering, one is not surprised to come across art and artists too. Notable among them I found none other than MF Husain, Sovi Savarkar and Vasudha Thozhur, as well as the works of the Japanese artist Iri Maruki. Apart from these were the photographs of the well-known journalist P Sainath and films of a number of film-makers, including Anand Patwardhan.

Devadasi by Sovi Savarkar

Some, like Husain, had exhibited canvases, others like Savarkar, showed prints, Thozhur had posters apart from the photographs and films. The range surprised me. What do they tell us about our world and its art? The Husain work ought to be worth over a couple of lakhs. It was largely abstract. The prints of Savarkar should be a few thousand each, while the reproductions of Maruki ought to be in hundreds and the posters for a few rupees each. This range shows us that our contemporary art is relevant to a wide section of people in our society today, even as a commodity. But that is not the whole story.

If the deliberations at the forum are anything to go by, one can expect the rich to become richer for some time to come and the poor poorer. The artists know this too. But it is interesting that the whole spectrum of contemporary art still homes in towards the life and condition of the impoverished masses. This gives me the feeling that the privileged and their sanitised lives are doomed to extinction so the artist has left them behind to seek the future with the masses who are the real makers of history.

And the investor follows them perforce. The wiry, bearded and barefoot Husain is very much in this process. He is the best representative of that peculiar blend of the spirit of the rural-oriented art of the national movement and folk expression with a blend of modernism that is the core of our best contemporary art. Indeed, this is the art we consider the best investment. And Husain?s presence at the Asian Social Forum confirms our view that his art holds relevance for the future as well.

At the radical edge of it, we have the anti-Manuvadi art of Savarkar. He makes the normally invisible contradictions of the archaic and unscientific division of human beings into castes visible. This ensures his place in the art of the future. His images of the naked devadasi with a temple-like body with pennants in her hair call to mind the role of ritual in obscuring the truth.

She is, after all, no more than a prostitute in the guise of a devotee. In the same way he deals with other inconsistencies of caste society like the dalit woman being untouchable in daylight and an object of lust at night, or of people human in form being equated with animals like pigs or birds like crows-scavengers all of them serving society as a whole but degraded because of it.

His most powerful image, of course, is of the arrogant bull-like Brahmins, looking even more savage with their painted faces and completely devoid of sensitivity. It reminds one of how degrading others to a level below animals degrades oneself as well. This exercise at making the invisible visible is accompanied with an accomplished hand at drawing and a highly painterly execution. Savarkar, some of whose canvases were chosen by Vivan Sundram in his group show that was exhibited at the Lalit Kala Akademi in Delhi recently, is an artist who will go a long way. Also, his recent sojourn in Mexico will give him, one hopes, the broader vision of making his art of the oppressed relevant globally as well. I, therefore, would recommend his work as a very good investment indeed to both galleries and collectors, as it is very affordable at present.

Another artist who has quietly entered the future is Vasudha Thozhur with a series of posters. Poster-making by leading artists like Haku Shah, Ghulam Sheikh, Arpana Caur and Manjeet Bawa, to name only a few, is nothing new. But what it has done is to create a market for good poster art. And posters are inexpensive. A good number of artist-designed posters can be had at the SAHMAT office in Delhi. Others could be had from the Lalit Kala Akademi offices. Also, the more intrepid can collect posters of exhibitions. Collecting these from a thematic or historical perspective is a worthwhile prospect.

Talking of themes, seeing Iri Maruki?s paintings of the US nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki reminds me that another theme worth investing in is anti-war art. It has the works of some of the world?s most-renowned artists figuring in it. We have Picasso?s ?Guernica? and his Dove of Peace. Henry Moore?s arch in Hiroshima; KK Hebbar?s Holocaust works; Arpana Caur?s work in Hiroshima museum, ?Where Have All the Flowers Gone?? and Hiroshima?s bombed out dome; and Vivan Sundaram and Sunil Das? Gulf War series are just a small faction of the vast body of such art. It would appear that the anti-war theme in art is a rich source for a good collection, especially as war clouds are gathering around us today and we need this sort of art about to explore new avenues to keep oneself afloat in bad times. This not only is worth investing in, but also a good raw material to think with and live life more meaningfully. Good investments do just that.