What bothers us?

Oindrilla Maity Surai

There is a vast difference. We have accepted it now. There is an unbridgeable gap between the art practice of the Eastern zone and the rest of the country. We can see it by the ratio of artists represented in the art magazines; books on art and even by gallerists who belong to the Eastern zone and yet who lose confidence in mounting shows with artists solely from this section of the country. Worse still is the fact that artists of the Eastern zone have lost faith in themselves when it comes to representing themselves in the national circuit.

However, this lack of confidence is a consequence of a consistent self-deprivation over the decades, which claims its lineage from the Bengal School. In addition to this, the two major allegations are there, including a lack of adequate political knowledge and the tendency to turn away their back to the current affairs. Also a markedly homesick attitude forms a characteristic trait of the Bengali life, which perhaps accounts for so many senior artists including the retired Faculty members of the art colleges still not having an email account of their own or the know-how to access the Internet. Eventually they shut themselves away from the rest of the bigger world.

In West Bengal, the hub of art colleges is in the capital, Kolkata. And, two of them, the Indian College of Art and Draftsmanship and the Govt. College of Crafts, both belonging to the colonial times, still follow a regimented curricular. Both these colleges lack a separate Department of Art History. The only other institution in the city that houses a Department of Art History is the Rabindra Bharati University, once again following a severely insufficient and faulty syllabus on the subject. The only exception is the Kalabhavana, at Santiniketan where the subject has gained good significance under serious guidance.

However, an overall orientation towards Art History, which is so intensely felt in Baroda, Mumbai, Delhi and even in quite some areas in the Southern part of the country, is largely absent in Kolkata and elsewhere in the State. Seminars, symposia, talks and paper readings are just once-in-a-while activities taking place in the art institutions, where paper readings are limited to the teachers and art critics who are invited only occasionally. Preparing and giving guidance to the students to present their own papers have never been part of the curriculam in the city-based institutions. Surprisingly enough, most of these art institutions were founded during the colonial days and possess a heritage nature. To my mind, one hundred and fifty years is a time sufficient to build up successful art historians and critics who could have championed artists from this part as successfully as elsewhere in the country.

In the long run, by and large, most senior and budding artists fall under the same trap. A lack of communication with an international dialogue impedes them from creating idioms that communicate at a wider level. Resorting to a local style, thus, engenders parochialism. The question is, what social statement do these art works create? What social crises, what human situation do they address? What significance do they evoke? What national situation do they hint at? How adaptable are our artists to the social changes that take place in this State? Do their art reflect those changes? Is their any sign of sound receptivity in their works? The only exception are, perhaps, a group of mid-career artists, whose work mark a more dynamic and experimental approach, with a bent towards a more contemporary dialect.

West Bengal loses out on the support from the industrial sector. The few industrialists who, in the past, had backed quite a few are overburdened with senior artists. Private collectors are a far cry here. Also, as recent history tells us, chances are gloomy for industrialists showing any keenness to settle down here. There is now hardly any room for the emerging artist who seeks to settle down elsewhere in the country, preferably in Baroda, to where the gallerists flock almost all year round. Also, the Faculty of Visual Arts at the M.S. University, Baroda gives space to students for displaying their works during the submission of their final years and the display lasts almost for four consecutive days, unlike the institutions in Kolkata where the display lasts just for hours. No special programme/ education is available on curation and hence the probability of championing artists through curatorial ventures remains a remote possibility. The history of curation is very short in this part of the country. It had started with gallerists approaching critics and journalists who were generally from a background of reviewing literary works or theatre, as art historians were few. Curators are fewer still. The curator’s role was, thus, limited to writing a catalogue essay and leaving the rest to the gallerist, including the selection of artists.

What seems almost a mandate now is a more porous programme on the gallery’s part. We need galleries to impart education through more interactive programmes – seminars, symposia, artist talks etc. Also small scale literature, such as coffee table books, go a long way in popularising art among the lay public. The more intense programmes might include educating the youth in the community, which is a positive exercise in ensuring a sustained audience (and not to say educated audience). Curatorial exchange programmes being another powerful way to strengthen ourselves is possible only in collaboration with more empathised and understanding galleries. I put the charge more on the galleries as it would take our institutions and the Government ages to realise what is requisite in a society where art is ‘above it all.’

(Oindrilla Maity Surai is a Kolkata-based art historian, independent curator and practicing artist. She teaches Art History at the Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata. Email: oindrilla.maity@gmail.com.)