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THE
ARTS
The
Three-Year Itch
India's
festival of international art is marked by a preponderance of installations
By
S.
Kalidas
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THE ALLURE OF ART: The Lalit Kala Academy gallery |
Every
three years (or thereabouts) the Department of Culture, government of
India, performs a reluctant ritual. Till but a few years ago this self-conscious
embrace of international art used to at least arouse some passion, some
controversies in the local art world. Now it is almost a non-event. There
are no threats of self-immolation, no one tears his canvases, no one heckles
the prime minister on inauguration night. But then the prime minister
no longer deigns to inaugurate it either. Routinely invitations are issued
to embassies, with less than three months to the inaugural date, and routinely
juries are nominated and awards given out. And that is how the Triennale
of International Art organised by the Lalit Kala Akademi (LKA) comes to
be.
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Hema
Malini deified as the Mother Goddess in Yass' star
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This
time too the sense of inertia is as palpable. Only 30 countries have consented
to participate and some important ones like the United States politely
declined citing lack of adequate notice. There is no theme or focus to
this sprawling mega-show, with a wide range of disparate entries (in some
cases even desperate), spread over three venues in the capital. The only
talking point during the somewhat surreal inauguration ceremony was the
absence of two eminent Indian members of the international jury-Akbar
Padamsee and A. Ramachandran. But if they were making a point by their
pointed absence, it was pretty mute. The perpetually-in-a-rush Minister
for tourism and culture Ananth Kumar did not even condescend to take a
round of the galleries. The lamp lit, the speeches made, he was off to
his next appointment.
The
one redeeming feature this time was the official adulation heaped on the
painter-sculptor-teacher Bhavesh Sanyal who, at the venerable age of 99,
is still remarkably sparkling. Not only is there a special section showing
his works but the postal department also released a First-Day-Cover to
mark his contribution to modern Indian art.
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| THE
MAGIC OF TRANSFORMATION: Gabriele Heidecker suns herself by Red Lake
Field 2001 |
If
one was to single out a sole element that marks this triennale from the
rest so far, it would be the preponderance of installation art. As with
most things fashionable, people tend to forget that global fads are never
necessarily new or revolutionary. In fact, those who remember the first
Triennale from 1968 would recall that the American sculptor (not called
installation artist in those days) Carl Andre had a work which was very
much a simple installation of plasticine bars lined on the floor.
This
time, among the most interesting works from abroad is easily Eugene Carchesio's
award winning work On Contemporary Silence-a highly minimalist white room
with small geometrically arranged white paper cones on a white wall. Silence
resonates here, making your eyes dance to an imagined song. Carchesio
is also a contemporary musician and that aural sensibility adds to his
visual enterprises as well.
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| FRAGRANCE
OF ASSOCIATION: Michele Blondel's Legend of the Mermaid and Unicorn |
Then
there is Gabriele Heidecker's open-air work at the Nehru Park, Red Lake
Field 2001-a set of quadrangular black ponds filled with a red liquid
which interacts with nature over a period of finite time to undergo a
series of metamorphoses. Like some pagan ritual, the point of work lies
more in the process of transformation than in the visual stillness of
the arrangement.
Also
on display is Briton Catherine Yass' series of computer-aided portraits
of Bollywood filmstars. An award-winning work, Yass' transparencies, mounted
on light-boxes, underline British academia's two-decade-old fascination
for popular Hindi cinema and the dynamics between the gaze of the viewer
and self-image of the icon.
Perhaps
the most complex creation is the French award-winning works Legend of
the Mermaid and the Unicorn, Twelve Holy Waters and a video film. Conceived
and executed by Michele Blondel, the work is too allegorical and metaphoric
to be deconstructed here. But however you look at it, it comes out smelling
of roses.
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