Barack and Michelle Obama are housed in the nation’s finest hotel that showcases a premier collection of contemporary Indian art. Collectively, the ITC chain’s cultural treasure trove is worth about $30 million. And Maurya has the pick of blue chip pieces. From the grand Krishen Khanna procession in the lobby to glass works by M.F. Husain on the windows; from a magnificent Tyeb Mehta on the 16th floor to Chandragupta Maurya’s procession by Sanjay Bhattacharya, this hotel has art that will make you stop in your tracks.
Krishen Khanna’s work done with the help of the students of Jamia Millia University more than two decades ago is an exemplary sensibility of Indian mood and timbre. When talking to this critic years ago, he said, “All great art has to be local. When I say local, I mean an artist had to draw from things near him so that a certain passion comes through in his paintings. At the same time, great art transcends the ordinary moment into infinity.”
Last year, at his retrospective done by Saffronart, he said, “The function of art is not decorative. True art defeats time, place and people. Art must go beyond a pretty picture. My gaze is independent of my pencil. I think I could shut my eyes without ceasing to scribble. Someone says ‘A map of an unknown galaxy... the pencil has become an extension of the nerves of my hand’ and other such nonsense. Sustained scribbling achieves only a small inroad which may dislodge an image. Sounds dramatic doesn’t it? It isn’t always so. I would feign repeat the contours of a subject I’ve tackled before, which is not to say that I would not go back to the same subject in the hope of discovering another dimension.”
Bordering on the narrative, Khanna’s work captures moments in history, much like photographs do, but the artist’s technique is far from photo-realist. Khanna transfers his observations onto the canvas with spontaneity and exuberance, keeping the representational elements of his subject matter intact.
But if Michelle Obama decides she wants a hair wash and dry at the Salon Di Wills, she will find a magnificent portrait of a girl combing her hair. Long, lithe strokes along with a heady softening of coloured restraint, Khanna’s subjects hold a compelling and characteristic charisma.
On the 16th floor is a fascinating work by Tyeb Mehta. Mehta, like many artists of his generation, had been witness to the tragic events that took place in India during and after the partition and his memories of this period clearly had an immense impact on him and the vocabulary of his art. He states, “There were elements of violence in my childhood… one incident left a deep impression on me. At the time of the Partition, I was living on Mohemmad Ali Road, which was virtually a Muslim ghetto. I remember a young man being slaughtered in the street below my window. I was sick with fever for days afterwards and the image still haunts me today. That violence has stuck in my mind”
The tremendous sense of release and exhilaration which swept the art world in the wake of World War II was felt just as strong in India. Having set out to explore the more fertile regions of contemporary art in the west and to establish himself within it with varying degrees of success, basically to prove to himself that Indian art had indeed come of age in the context of world art, the Indian artist could not ignore the persistent call of his homeland. Understandably most of his work took the form of exposure and protest. The trauma of social changes; the tensions of a feudal, cast ridden, tradition-bound society groping towards a secular, democratic ideal; the violence and bitterness of internal divisions and of economic uncertainty are all reflected in works of art which writhe with a sense of humiliation, despair and anger. Tyeb’s bull is an exemplary evocation of the searing sense of honesty and the truth of a probing intent.
At the far end of the lobby is Satish Gujral’s work of burnt wood. Painter, sculptor, muralist, architect, interior designer and more, he has ventured beyond the conventional boundaries of individual art forms. He has painted in oil and acrylic, sculpted using wood, bronze and granite, made paper collages and ceramic murals, designed buildings in brick and stone, and left his mark in metal and glass, creating works that telescope the past with contemporary history, and represent a continuum between distinct art forms. It was in the 1970’s that he worked on metal and burnt wood. Using tantric symbols as his theme, he maintained the thread of the non-representational and abstract.
This work has multiple associations. Gujral’s work is unmistakable for the sheer mobility of line. Evolution and process are as important to Gujral as the end result. His artistic intent is engaged in his childhood, the national movement, social and political history, Indian traditional elements, people, nature, and relationships.
They are instantly recognisable as Gujral’s creations, though each phase of the artist’s work is distinguished by unique, atypical elements.
Then there is the three-paneled Chandragupta Maurya’s procession by ace artist Sanjay Bhattacharya.
This brilliant set of work reflects the panoramic perspective of Indian history. It weaves in techniques and studies of the British watercolours along with the realist studies of Dutch masters. All in all, Michelle and Barack Obama will have a four-day art odyssey at the ITC Maurya.