BECOMING RESPONSIBLE (ARTIST?)

We don’t understand modern art! 
A comment that is commonly heard from visitors to the art galleries. Satirical caricatures are common in popular media mocking the gap in appreciation, comprehension of the abstract paintings or so-called modern form of visual arts. We find people passing similar comments upon watching newer forms of performing arts termed as hip-hop or dubstep and others. While this attitude is a demarcation between the group of creators and non-creators, it is perhaps in many ways tragic. The efforts on both sides are little as compared to the advancement in creative practices and lifestyle. Who is to be blamed for this situation? Artists for creating something incomprehensible, the art organisations promoting the arts or the viewers for lagging whilst the artists were marching on in the Avant-Garde? There is no one or linear answer to this situation, rather it requires a multitude address to the complex situation(s). We shall attempt here to understand certain influential factors to find the means to arrive at a point where the picture is at least clear for perception.

Students analysing artworks at the exhibition “Romantic Realist: M V Dhurandhar”
at the NGMA, Mumbai, 2019. Photo credit: Author.

Through past few decades lay persons or general viewers of visual arts are noticed to register how they are incapable of understanding the modern arts, and state that they like to see paintings by Ravi Varma or portraits or figurative works and landscapes, that have something identifiable, or at least they could relate with the elements surrounding them. However, it would be generally observed that even with a simple landscape or any mythological scene painted the perception of this audience is in fact superficial. While this is the classical tragedy of our audience, the problem is multi-layered.

The European renaissance movement led to shifts in not only the fine arts but all the sciences and humanities, that helped the societies too to graduate simultaneously. This development continues through further centuries creating an ecosystem of education, the culture of collecting and displaying the artworks keeping the audience informed through salon exhibitions, public museums, ateliers, workshops, studios, galleries, and similar formal and informal set-ups. Though with several (necessary) oppositions to earlier styles and movements, the visual arts have grown richer with a continuous reflection upon world history and life. A similar phenomenon is not observed in colonial India and onwards. The industrial revolution gave rise to developments but primarily in manufacturing and allied markets. Little was done on a national scale for the education of the audience. However, the artists were provided with the institutional machines of Lalit Kala Akademi, its regional centres and the Triennale expositions making room for the interaction of artists internationally through the artworks and few artist exchange programs. A necessary inclusive approach engaging artworks and the viewers have been out of the programming checklists for decades till late at all counters. The research symposia and discourses at the universities documenting the history and cultural landscape of India appear to provide some engagement, but mainly for the informed viewers and to an extent the elite.

Art writing as a discipline is nascent in India with critical writing arrested to the selected urban art practices. Major literature is found through catalogue essays, gallery notes and mostly use the language of academic nature, heavily worded with jargons that are inaccessible to not only the general public but also to the artists themselves. Besides, the fascination for catalogue or exhibition wall texts in English with complex language has become a choice for artists to sound-off the presumed superiority of the works. At times, such language might be a requirement for art historical discourses, but of little use to ‘uninitiated,’ ‘untrained’ minds. In other words, such writing just rejects the entry into the works or ideas OR allows only to select few. The readership too is limited to the people involved in the exchanges of the art world.

Few examples like the book Vision and Creation by Nandalal Bose, in Marathi, Soundarya ani Sahitya by B S Mardhekar, Soundarya Mimansa by R B Patankar and Nutan Chitravali by Bhayyasaheb Omkar, are some publications to name a few, were available to educate the new enthusiasts and the students of visual arts. Complementing are the regional periodicals and publications by the museums highlighting the curated exhibitions for the promotion of their heritage collection. The BBC TV series of 1972 ‘Ways of Seeing’ presented by John Berger, and the recent series ‘How Art Made the World’ presented by Nigel Spivey etc is significant with eye-opening concepts put across to all types of viewers to enter the world of image making. Having said so, the contemporary practice as an overview is kept out of intellectual bounds of the commoners either as a result of dynamic shifts in practice or practical limitations in being inclusive or perhaps ignorance.

It is also pertinent to ask the citizens, whether they are interested in the visual arts as a component of their cultural life, today? Do they know the significance of visual arts in shaping their children's life besides being educated for earning a livelihood? Whether they are aware of plastic arts (art shaped by hands) as a source of aesthetic experiences other than popular cinema and Netflix? How often do they see an original piece of art? Or do they get such opportunities to engage with art in their neighbourhood? Do you know any painter or a poet living in the neighbourhood? Comprehension of the so-called realism or figurative paintings too requires a context.  – academic and indigenous. The viewers must consider that if their mobile phones can click a facsimile photograph of anything around oneself and even distort them at will just by a click on smartphones, then why to expect an artist to limit themselves to painstakingly paint like a photo. Of course, skill and craftsmanship are virtuous to artists, but challenging the conventional and establishing new idioms of visual language is a requirement of everyone, let alone the artist. 

Cartoon based on the Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco incident of young Kevin Nguyen placing his spectacles on the gallery floor that was assumed to be artwork by the viewers, 2016. Illustration by Nikhil Purohit.

With the entry of modernism in India, post-Independence as nation-building activity or in the arts influenced by European styles in Art, the artists were thrilled by the new value system of painting and sculpting. As a general notion, the new trends were accommodated in the mainstream as well as regional centres either with scepticism or devotion. While the academic style of illustration and portraiture were widely accepted, the newer trends with their intense ideas of distortion came as shock to the viewers. The means or avenues to understand this eclectic shift remained missing. The artists of the yester-generation carried an attitude of ‘I’ve done my job (of painting), now it’s their job to understand, I will not (verbally) speak about my work.’ This approach stays justified as visual art is meant to be seen and not verbally described by the artist again. As this stand expects equal efforts from the viewers, the art historical context needs to be presented to them without which one cannot respond in a manner that creates a dialogue with artworks. Besides, this stand is largely admissible only to abstract expressionist works and not a general prescription to all genres of art. Given the vividness in the contemporary art world, a sizable group(s) of artists and private galleries are promoting art that is explicitly vague, pseudo-intellectual, poor copies of popular or renowned artworks, and vulgar under the name of radical. These ill-practices add another challenge, layer for identification of good art against fictitious art practices. In this case, is the artist (in general) to be held responsible for this?

Organisations of all types have their distinct roles in the promotion of the arts. Educational institutes, Private organisations and collectors, commercial and public art galleries, auction houses, non-profit cultural organisations, conservation services are the prominent elements found in urban spaces. With the changing scenario of the contemporary arts, all these organisations need to change their working methods to accommodate newer approaches and economics. As education is primary to the students of visual arts, it is necessary to identify and sensitise their audience for a dialogue. The Bombay Art Society, The Arts Society of India, Lalit Kala Akademi etc need to engage in providing a platform for the arts besides the conventional mode of artist camps, annual exhibitions, and award ceremonies. While these organisations have provided the foundation to the current art world of India, with due credit to them, they also must consider the inevitable shifts in the artistic exchanges and reform.

The creators and audience today have access to the world of internet and find sources of learning and entertainment through more dynamic means that cannot be thought of. Keeping the exhibition format interactive, display design engaging for the audience to practically participate, and facilitating open access for interpretation of the artworks. The diversity of contemporary art practice has increased globally making it even more incomprehensible and challenging to associate one set of aesthetic values. Perhaps this transition makes it difficult to establish free-flowing systems to appreciate the arts. However, the concepts of Arts or Heritage management along with art mediation have been enriching the whole economy of arts sustainability and cultural exchanges. Indian museums like the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, Bhau Daji Lad City Museum, Kochi Biennale, the newly opened Bihar Museum have been incorporating means to engage the audience not only to have better footfall at the premises but also to increase the time spent in watching the display area. With the International Council of Museums (ICOM) motto of museums having ‘no borders but networks,’ the message is clear and right out there, declaring the inclusive and educative agenda of the human cultural heritage for the generations to come. ICOM defines a museum as ‘a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment. Can other stakeholders bear some of these aforesaid characteristics?

Art Mediation workshop held at studio Pannadwar, Naigaon, Palghar, 2018. Photo credit: Author.

Art Mediation is the only solution to the disparities in art appreciation for the layperson as well as artists. Art Mediation is a growing field of activities in a flourishing contemporary art world. The reason for these intensified engagements is not only the increasing number of exhibitions and events like biennales or festivals in recent years spreading all over the world but much more it is the desire to make the art world a less elitist and more broadly accessible place that motivates art mediation. In order to let independent interpretations of the artworks presented along with supporting lateral perceptions, mediation tools are the need of today for bridging the gap of non-perception to open access to perception. This would enable the viewers not only have a better perception of the arts but also to have a say in the practices.

Art is a free activity, and to let it be free we need an informed audience and the economic system in place. Having said so Art Mediation is not limited to, post exhibition activity, but right from the conception of an exhibition, designing the display, the place of the exhibition, the commercial aspects are taken into consideration and if the artist feels comfortable- even during the making of art. Thus, it is the responsibility not alone of the artist to make art but also of the other members to make the art accessible ensuring the shift from “We don’t understand modern art!” to “We find art (all) amusing/ interesting/ non-aesthetic/ unacceptable/ entertaining/ contextual/ critical/ rebellious/ etc.”

Nikhil J L Purohit 

12. 03. 2019