Present Tense: International Economic Interludes

In this essay, Kathleen Wyma, a Canadian art historian and critic specialising in contemporary Indian art, critically examines the impact of the changes that have taken place in the contemporary Indian art scenario during the past couple of years.

 

 

As the nation of India continues to become more prominent on the international stage, its culture becomes increasingly relevant to the rest of the world.  An amalgam of ethnicities, cultures and language, religion, political ideologies and economic strata, how the people of India negotiate these complexities to form a unified and democratic nation can become a model for how other nations may resolve the anxieties presented by globalization and post-modernism. 

                        -   India at the Venice Biennale 2005, Press Release [1]

 

            The 51st Venice Biennale (2005) witnessed a number of unprecedented ‘firsts’ in its one hundred and ten year long history as one of the most important art events in the world.  Not only was the exposition’s art direction determined by two women, Maria de Corral and Rosa Martinez, but it was also the first time that India had its own pavilion at this prestigious international event. [2]  Located on the island Giudecca, physically separated from all the other pavilions, ‘iCon: India Contemporary’wassponsored by the Lucas Artists Program at the Montalvo Arts Centre in Saratoga , California and was jointly curated by Peter Nagy, George Knox, and Julie Evans.  The Venice exhibition showcased the work of Atul Dodiya, Anita Dube, Ranbir Kaleka, Nalini Malani, Nataraj Sharma and the Raqs Media Collective. [3]   Although Malani has enjoyed a consistent global presence since the early 1980s, the remaining artists in ‘iCon: India Contemporary’ were comparatively new to the international circuit.  In the last few years, this younger generation has opened a new chapter in contemporary art by garnering a reputation for experimental artworks and the introduction of new media to artistic practice. 

 

International exhibitions aside, prior to the 2005 Biennale, the visual vocabulary of these artists found limited readership amongst the art going public at home.  Writing at the end of the 90s Peter Nagy observes:  

Most of the federally funded art institutions seem to take their cue from the High Society model, consciously disregarding the avant-garde in favour of a fictionalized, democratized version of the fine arts.  A polarity currently exists within the contemporary art scene in India .  On the one hand we have a large market which is predominantly defined by the whims of the urban upper middle class infatuated with kitsch and self-consciously smug about its lack of knowledge of art in general.  Our other pole is a vibrant milieu made up of passionate thinkers and gifted creators which exists, miraculously, on no funds at all (but of course there is a middle ground and wide swaths of grays). [4]  

 

Clearly the 2005 Venice Biennale stands as a watershed of sorts, and it ostensibly marked the continuance of a mercurial rise in prices for contemporary art.  Prior to the current trans- global economic downturn, the reception and market value of contemporary art significantly increased at both national and international levels.  Without a doubt, the growing Indian economy and its ever expanding middle class fuelled both interest and investment in modern art. [5]   In economically optimistic times, the middle class may seek to increase their social and cultural capital by purchasing art; however, other factors in recent years have influenced the escalating interest in contemporary art. 

 

Organisations such as the Mumbai-based auction house Osian’s have actively sought to increase the market profile of Indian art.  Osian’s Chairman and CEO, Neville Tuli sees the auction house as a critical and necessary component in building a national infrastructure for the arts beyond the pale of state institutions. [6]  Osian’s efforts include the production of comprehensive catalogues devoted to contemporary and historical art.  These catalogues are filled with high quality reproductions, extensive bibliographies and equal care and attention are given to establishing authenticity and verifying provenance.  However, these endeavors are not merely altruistic and more often than not Osian’s sets its varied collections upon the block for public auction. [7]   Osian’s professionalism undoubtedly paved the way for the changing perception of contemporary art within the nation.  Yet its success may have also encouraged international auction houses such as Sotheby’s and Christie’s to reconsider the Indian art market. 

   

A little more than a decade ago Sotheby’s ( London ) closed down its Delhi office due to a lack of sustainable national interest; however, in 2005, it re-opened an office in Bombay . [8]   At that time, Anuradha Mazumda, a representative of the London-based auction house observed, “[T]he market for contemporary Indian art is bullish and aggressive . . . India is now recognized as a major growth market, forcing international auction houses to pay more attention to it.” [9]   Indeed many international collectors stood up and noticed the bullish market for contemporary art when Christie’s (New York) placed Tyeb Mehta’s ‘Mahisasura,’ (1997) on the auction block in January 2006 where it fetched $1.58 million (US) far surpassing its listed value of $600,000.  If the unexpected worth of Mehta’s work, India ’s pavilion within the venerated environs of the Venice Biennale and the continued market interest in contemporary art mark a critical rite of passage, then it is long overdue. [10]  

 

It is easy, however, to forget that international interest in contemporary art did not occur in a vacuum.  The “boom” marks a culmination point of mounting attention that began in 1982 when Britain hosted ‘The Festival of India’, a multifaceted celebration of South Asian culture. [11]   The festival marked the inception of cultural festivals that continued throughout the 1980s in countries like England , France and the United States . [12]   The Festival of India was first proposed by Sir John Thompson, the High Commissioner to India and, as Saryu Doshi observes,the event“. . . signaled the beginning of a spectacular phenomenon - the scale and extent of which was unprecedented.  Never before had the civilisation and culture of India, or for that matter of any country - been projected in such a multifaceted and sustained manner. . .” [13]   Continuity and change was the forward looking theme of the Festival of India, which aimed to chronicle the country’s cultural development “. . . from the primitive stone age to the dynamic Space Age.” [14]   The festival consisted of ninety separate events ranging from dance and food exhibitions to more sustained gallery shows.  It is of interest to note that the Festival of India included only two exhibitions of modern art in its vast repertoire of Indian culture: ‘Modern Indian Artists’ (April 7 - May 23) held at the Tate Gallery and ‘Contemporary Art from India ,’ held at the Royal Academy of Arts (September 18 - October 31).  These exhibitions presumably initiated the interest of international auction houses and in 1989 Sotheby’s hosted ‘Timeless Art,’ an unprecedented auction of contemporary figurative work in Bombay . [15]   Showcasing the work of thirty-five individuals, representing a broad array of senior and junior artists, the ‘Timeless Art’ auction catapulted many into the international arena: Nalini Malani, Manjit Bawa, N.S Bendre, Bhupen Khakhar, Manu Parekh, Madhuvi Parekh, Gieve Patel, Alex Mathew, Tyeb Mehta, Mrinalini Mukherjee, Pushpamala N, D.L.N. Reddy, Ravinder Reddy, Himmat Shaw, G.M. Sheikh, Nilima Sheikh, K.G. Subramanyan and Vivan Sundaram.

 

To be sure, the international interest in contemporary art is nothing new, nor is it exempt from the vagaries of the global market.  Charges of chandelier bidding, or phantom bids, designed to drive prices up abound, and serve to underscore the notion that what is being exchanged here is a commodity.  Monetary value has nothing to do with artistic or aesthetic value.  Biennales and other international exhibitions are showrooms for potential investors.  To be sure, the installations in the Biennale (2005) declaratively stood as visual refusals of the art/commodity combine, yet one needs to be wary of any potential linkages between the buying and selling of art and the buying and selling of culture.  I find it troubling that within the context of the press release for the 2005 Venice Biennale, India ’s culture was played as the trump card and held up as a paradigmatic model for the resolution of anxieties embedded in the social, political, and cultural complexities of our current global moment. 

 

Money is money but culture is another thing entirely.  There was a time, in the not too distant past, when culture (writ large) in the waning years of colonialism was considered the last refuge of resistance to hegemonic forces.  However, if one takes the press release of the Biennale at face value to position India ’s culture (not her artistic expressions) as a model by which the rest of the world can resolve its own anxieties over globalisation and postmodernism, then the waters have become extremely muddied.  The changing role of culture – its definitions and its deployments – remain key points of inquiry and perhaps in the wake of the recent art boom one has to be particularly careful about mystified or over determined statements.  To be sure, there are many classifications of culture; however, it needs to be taken as a problematic term that needs to be carefully historicised and contextualised especially in relation to artistic expression.  Whether India ’s culture is now celebrated as an exemplar or for its untapped and apparently lucrative contemporary art market is a question that remains to be answered.

 

The role of culture (if I may belabour the point) in the hard-fought struggles for legitimacy has been a pivotal issue and perhaps one of the most productive theoretical and concrete forces of the late Twentieth Century.  The Subaltern Studies Group, in their Gramscian phase, raised serious methodological questions about the writing of colonial history and actively sought to invert a top-down model of historiography.  Theirs was a project that seriously considered the role of culture in the articulation of dissent and the possibility of claiming agency in spaces existing beyond the frames of elite power.  However, as Vinay Bahl points out, the Subaltern Studies’ initial valourisation of culture was deeply problematic as it rested upon a “classic liberal view that culture represents the realm of freedom and choice” – a classic liberal view that was not, by any means, universally enjoyed. [16]   Though Bahl’s critique was written more than ten years ago, it stands as a harbinger of negative political ‘truth.’  One need only recall how a politicised version of culture became the battering ram of fascism throughout the 1980s and 1990s with the rise of Hindutva.  The ascendancy of Hindu Nationalism is an extreme illustration of the abuse of culture, but it serves to underscore how definitions of culture, its indices and expressions can be manipulated.

 

At the risk of sounding polemical I cite the words of Amilcar Cabral writing in the 1970s:

The value of culture as an element of resistance to foreign domination lies in the fact that culture is the rigorous manifestation on the ideological or idealist plane of the physical and historical reality of the society that is dominated or to be dominated.  Culture is simultaneously the fruit of a people’s history and a determinant of history, by positive or negative influence which it exerts on the evolution of relationships between man and his environment, among men or groups of men within society, as well as among different societies. [17]

 

In contradistinction to Cabral’s characterisation of culture, the present and decidedly postmodern understanding of culture is deeply problematic.  Terry Eagleton argues the halcyon days of celebrating difference have long since past. [18]   Autonomous culture is faint a blimp on the global radar screen; it is now a nebulous field, which is easily traversed.  Nataraj Sharma’s ‘Departure’ and ‘Airshow,’included in the 2005 Biennale,drew poignant attention to the dissolution of staid geographical and cultural boundaries.  ‘Departure’ represents a landscape painted across six panels.  The landscape is indeterminable in its location but is identifiable in its experiential allusion.  By this I mean, the backdrop represents a common view to anyone who has ever traveled by air – to represent those moments that the plane gains altitude and the land below disappears under a blanket of clouds.  Set against the multi-paneled ‘Departure,’ Sharma’s ‘Airshow’ positioned cast iron planes within a grid of welded iron bars.  As if alluding to the transcontinental flows of air-traffic and the complex grids of migration, Sharma’s work, whether by default or design, illustrates the breakdown of moribund notions of centre and periphery to highlight the complexities of global interaction.

 

It is these complexities that, I believe are worth further investigation.  Is culture, now a tertiary concept, relegated to the dustbin of by-gone days?  Has the era and the intellectual climate that precipitated the dawning of postcolonial studies and its critical reconsideration of colonialism’s history been domesticated within our current moment?  If so, then how does this play out within the realm of artistic expression, or more to the point, international exhibitions?  Perhaps it is the issue of what gets lost in translation that troubles me so.  There is a part me that want to preserve cultural identity and not reduce it to an empty commodity, or an imaginary community.  Just because my yoga instructor says, “Namaste” does not mean that I have any connection with the historic practice of yogis in India .  Further to this, I want to be able to say, “I am Canadian” without worrying about copyright infringement. [19]   We live in a world of porous boundaries and trouble-free, branded identities.  Is it possible that cultural identity is a waning concept, one that is superfluous to any discussion of artistic practice? [20]   I have suggested, for better or worse, the pressing issues of postcolonial identities and cultural difference have been largely discursively (or theoretically) resolved; however, there seems to be a new leviathan lurking in the wings prompting a normative discourse under the banner of trans-global internationalism.  The Venice Biennale in 2005 and the growing market interest in contemporary art are two of many examples signaling India ’s unproblematic position in the intercontinental arena, but this too has to be historicised in order to understand what is at stake in the waxing and waning relationship between art and commerce.  If current situation is any indication, the moment of India ’s arrival is paradoxically her moment of loss.