Curating beyond the palpable

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Curatorial practice in India is still at a juncture where it can hardly claim to have arrived. Artists, gallery owners, scribes, et al, want to be on the bandwagon and be known as curators. However, with neither enough experience nor training or even a finely honed aesthetic sense, the so-called curated shows keep getting launched into the art market. While the average rasika may not be able to point out what is exactly wrong, they can surely sense a difference.

Curatorial practice involves such diverse accomplishments that it is no wonder it needs training — a background of art history to begin with, a fair amount of working knowledge about a large number of works of the period that one is dealing with, the ability to contextualise the selection of the works and artists in the written text with a strong aesthetic and design sense in the final presentation. Even if all this falls into place, senior artists may still be unwilling to part with their work if they don’t trust you or know you as an established curator. It is indeed a tall order. As most “curators” don’t have one or the other accomplishment, it is hardly a matter of surprise that their noses often rub the ground.
So, when invites come pouring in announcing yet another group show, my first response is to cringe at the prospect of seeing an elegant vintage Ram Kumar rubbing shoulders with a bright-hued and over-the-top Binoy Vargese. For half the trick lies in the hanging. A badly hung show can get killed twice over — and vice versa, even a tardy selection can be saved with appropriate hanging. But oblivious to the affront and anguish caused by shows with indifferent aesthetics, the curators continue to masquerade on heroically while one marvels at their sheer guts.
Group shows, even if they are camouflaged as annual shows, are at the best of times like a supermarket, selling everything under one roof. Invariably, it is a collection where well-known names are bandied about like brands with their signature canvasses, while a few upcoming artists, whose work is more often than not better than that of their senior colleagues, is thrown in to fill space. What is even worse at times is seeing the works of some of the senior artists repeat themselves ad nauseum. There is often no attempt to even experiment, as they have no desire to wander too far away from their safe havens.
Case in point is the recent show of the Chawla Art Gallery. While it had signature pieces by all the biggies they normally deal with, few of them had bothered to make forays into the unknown. Two artists whose work stood out were Sanjay Bhattacharya and to an extent Sidharth. In the work on display, The Fall, Sidharth’s lyrical, almost boneless figures still feature in the picture, yet it is the mood that holds centrestage, making it different and taking him a step ahead. Sanjay is an artist who believes in breaking his own mould and starting anew. He has the conviction to experiment and veer away from the tried and tested formula art. These works literally burst forth with a force that is fresh and so vivid in its detail that it is like aesthetic ambrosia. On the other hand, when one sees relatively younger artists like Ramesh Gorjala and Laxman Aelay, one wonders why they are going the formula way and evoking a sense of déjà vu, as they have age on their side and can afford to innovate.
Gallery Art Positive’s show on Sai Baba, however, treads dangerous territory — for any depiction of icons tends to get into calendar art or complete obtuse art at both best and worst. The one work that stands out here is a delicate and inspired work by Sudip Roy. It goes to the core of Sai to touch a cord within the onlooker, without getting into calendar art at all. Sridhar Iyer’s abstract installation too takes the icon into the realm of the nirgun, given his vast experience with such symbolism. The other artists have played safe and taken the more obvious route.
Having said this, what is the way out in a situation like this? Here is where the curatorial role comes into play: One of mentoring the artist in a hitherto unexplored artistic direction, but not necessarily a commercial one, which is what commercial galleries tend to do. One can hardly blame them for they must have one eye on the sales too; however, hiring proper trained and experienced curators will actually go a long way in contextualising, presenting and catapulting contemporary Indian art into the international arena. It needs this crucial push from within the arts circle before it can hope to make an indelible mark on the international canvas and rise above the regional and the palpable.

Dr Alka Raghuvanshi is an art writer, artist and curator