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ARTS:
KHOJ WORKSHOP
Wide
Canvas
Installation
art comes alive as artists from the world over converge on a remote town
to experiment, argue and have a great time
By
Namita
Bhandare
The
dusty highway town of Modinagar in Uttar Pradesh seems an unlikely setting
for artistic inspiration. But for the past four years, it's precisely
in the bowels of this once bustling, now fallen-on-bad-days industrial
town that artists from all over the world have met for a two-week workshop.
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| Masood
lends an air of sobriety to the workshop through his assembly of newspaper
cuttings and theatre masks depicting the tragedy of the state
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The workshop-Khoj-has
itself battled the odds of precarious finances to emerge as a major art
event, particularly for young artists. For a fortnight every year, a dozen
Indian and an equal number of foreign artists come together to work, experiment,
argue and, hopefully, have a great time.
The third
in this list of unlikelies is Sikhribagh, the house where the artists
live and work. The Modi residence once served as a guest house for the
industrial family's religious gurus, and its multi-acre grounds boast
fruit trees and a man-made pond. Family retainers shuffle about observing
an unwritten code of feudal hierarchy and if they're surprised by the
more avant garde house guests they certainly don't show it.
Appropriately,
the open studio day did have an element of festivity. The first task for
the visiting artists was to scour the grounds of this mansion to locate
and claim their areas of work. Delhi-based artist Sonia Khurana zeroed
in on a well situated at the entrance to prop up in it an old, rusted
pipe and place an audio recording of her own wailing voice deep within
the well. To add to the sense of drama was a woman nonchalantly threading
marigold garlands nearby and a baby asleep on a cot, oblivious to the
effect that the wailing seemed to have on the audience. The onlookers
comprised primarily fellow artists, art critics and a bunch of wild-eyed,
excited kids from the local school. As it turned out, the woman and baby
were not intended to be part of this artistic experience.
Not far
off, Orissa-based Sovan had come up with a commentary on marriage. The
work was split into two parts: the first half, in the form of a wedding
card painted on the wall, was located in the courtyard of the house, while
the second was the site of marriage at the edge of the pond. This was
capped by a performance by the artist himself who dressed up as a "bridegroom".
But not
all was fun and frolic. There was the tragedy of Kashmir as seen in the
work of Masood, who had assembled press cuttings from the daily Subah
Kashmir and a handful of tragic theatre masks. "This is what Kashmiris
wake up to every morning," he said. Included in his work were threads
tied as if at a dargah; a reminder of the boys who've gone missing.
A Local
Touch: What was perhaps most amazing was the way in which many of
the foreign artists-some visiting India for the first time-adapted to
the local environment. Almost all of them used local materials. UK-based
Lin Holland, for instance, placed her work at the two guard outposts near
the entrance to the house. Using a large reel of cotton thread that she
picked up from the local mill and a bunch of locks and keys found at the
local locksmiths', her twin work Access/No Access comprised the locks
and keys suspended from threads and was marvellous in the complexity of
its interpretation. An unexpected bonus was the fascinating movement produced
by the threads.
Lucia King
from the Netherlands chose a large tree, enclosing it within a metallic
grill. After painting the trunk a shade of blue, she suspended from its
branches glass balls, each containing a paradigm for contemporary artists.
There was pornography and new ageism, materialism and religion. Vengaboys
blared in the background, serving as a commentary not just on contemporary
artistic values but on social values too.
Patna artist
Kalam, who was attending an international workshop for the first time,
felt inspired to essay his first installation, a tribute to the goddess
Kali. Although he lamented the death of patua art-patuas paint, recite
and enact mythological stories for village audiences-he seemed oblivious
to the irony of the situation where he was using his own traditional devices
in a seemingly post-modern situation.
"What
makes Khoj important is that it provides space for alternative art,"
says Sheila Makhijani, who had participated in the workshop two years
ago. Moreover, foreign artists often bring with them slides of contemporary
work from their respective countries and "the interaction is deeply
fulfilling," she adds.
For Pooja
Sood, Khoj coordinator, keeping the spirit of interaction alive has been
an uphill task. This year's effort included a razzmatazz raffle fund-raiser
at the British Council, where for Rs 5,000 a ticket, 100 works of art
by renowned artists like Arpita Singh, Manu Parekh, Arpana Caur and Jogen
Chowdhry were up for grabs.
"The
thing to remember," says Sood as she walks around the sprawling grounds,
"is that much of this work is experimental. It's a process that stays
with the artists long after they've left this workshop."
In a world
where cultural and artistic boundaries are being drawn tighter all the
time, Khoj is perhaps an ideal manifestation of this trend.
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