There is something infectious about the New Year. Call it conditioning if you will, but like most of us, I am happy to be swept by the desire to feel hopeful that this will be an interesting year for the Indian arts. We have been sitting on the edge, waiting for transition to happen for a long time now. And while we were not looking, that transition actually arrived.
The one singular attitudinal change that has its trigger in the previous year and hopefully is here to stay, is the after many years of bandying brand names of the Indian art scene, art audiences, buyers, collectors are willing to look beyond towards artists that are out of the rat race of names. The older collectors and so-called investors were playing conservative and happy to go with the tried and tested. But thankfully, the younger lot is opting for artists who are in sync with their own mindset and lifestyles. It is my theory that art, like music, is a fair indicator of the chronological age of its audience.
While relatively newer forms like video installations did make their presence felt in the last few years, these are not genres to stay if trends in Europe and America are any indication. The reason is not far to seek. Videos art comprises moving images that can’t, strictly speaking, be hung on the walls, that has been a major deterrent for the idiom not being on the “must buy” list. Then the thematic content of the videos is often not in consonance with popular taste. Installations too are a form that has seen increasingly fewer takers of late. The scene is unlikely to change in this year. Investors on the art scene had burnt their fingers and had even succeeded in putting off a lot of potential art buyers in the last couple of years. Thankfully, the trend of actually acquiring art for its own sake made its presence felt, let us hope that this trend continues!
This month will see the Art Summit in Delhi and the projections are that focus will be on younger artists and some still unknown names. Middle-level artists, many of whom are there in their 50s will now emerge as strong contenders of our attention this year. But more than solos, the trend of last year of holding large group shows has gained ground and found favour with galleries and their audiences alike. The only thing I have against this supermarket approach is the fact that most of the shows are jumbles from Bhanumati’s pitara and make no thematic sense.
Sculpture is a difficult genre to master and finds fewer supporters. This year will see some important shows that are in the pipeline that will hopefully find more takers. Sculptors tend to get very obsessed with large scale and formats — understandably so — but they would do well to remember that mere mortals living in cramped apartments have a right to smaller pieces.
The Lalit Kala Akademi has been reeling under the high-handed and vindictive approach of its chairman Ashok Vajpayee who wanted to throw out the vice-chairman, dissolve the general council and had sacked the secretary as well. With the end of his tenure, things will hopefully come under control and the strides forward being taken by the Akademi will continue. How easy it is for egoistic heads of institutions to set off self-destruct buttons just as they are about to exist is deplorable. They not only undo the progress made, but also set the institution back.
The only way out is an arts management cadre so that such mavericks are not able to hold institutions to ransom. It’s sad that this is the state of a national organisation in a country that boasts of its centuries old culture. And the worst part is that there is not too much largesse to be distributed and yet there is so much politicking. I want to look at the New Year with rose-tinted glasses and it is my deepest desire to see the arts of our country firmly on the world culture map and as they say, insha-allah!
Dr Alka Raghuvanshi is an art writer, curator and artist