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THE ARTS: NGMA
Sales Pitch
Union Minister for Culture Maneka Gandhi threatens
to sell off works from the National Gallery of Modern Art to raise much
needed funds
By S. Kalidas
On
the record, mum is the word. Shut off the tape, close the notebook and
they just don't stop singing. Out of the 28-member advisory committee
of the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), at least half are screaming
in operatic whispers. Nothing so amusing or so threatening-depending on
the point of view-has happened to the staid NGMA in a long time.
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| NO HOLY BASTION: NGMA has seen many battles
and now under Maneka it is readying for war |
According to many present at the NGMA advisory
committee meeting on October 1, Union Minister for Culture Maneka Gandhi
is in an activist mode. Bursting with energy and enthusiasm, she made
it clear in no uncertain terms to the gathering of artists, experts and
gallery owners who comprise the committee that she wants to "make
NGMA pay for itself as art can no longer be subsidised by the state".
So she has hit upon the idea of "cutting off the dead wood"
and having a "happening and sexy auction party" at the National
Gallery to raise funds and make space.
But that is not all. What happened in the meeting
was a surrealist spectacle. Gandhi, it is alleged, launched off on a long,
passionate discourse on what she thought ailed the NGMA in particular
and the art scene in general. "There is no money, either for future
purchases or the new extension gallery project," the minister is
said to have announced. "I am not going to the Planning Commission
with a begging bowl. It is time art was made to pay for itself. Besides
there are too many past acquisitions in the NGMA collection which were
purchased due to political or other considerations." She continued,
"I want you to cull out all that dead wood. Just look at the list
attached to your agenda papers. Out of the 15,000-odd works, nearly 7,000
are of one single Bengali artist called Nandlal Bose. Then there are lots
of gaping holes in the list. Many names who should be here aren't."
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"Of the 15,000-odd
works in the NGMA collection around 7,000 are of one Bengali artist,
Nandlal Bose."
Maneka Gandhi, Union Minister for Culture |
By now, the advisory committee members were aghast.
Kekoo Gandhy, the venerable old gallery man from Mumbai, was trembling.
Sharon Apparao muttered something about "norms of de-accession".
But the girl guide enthusiasm of madame Maneka was far from dimmed. "I
know just what we'll do," she continued. "I want you all to
tick off the ones you feel can be sold off and let's have a big, slick
party. Celebrities and all. And with all the media interest we'll generate,
we'll have a sexy auction to raise money for the NGMA."
"But why would anyone buy works that we
don't consider good enough to grace the NGMA collection?" asked a
lone doubting voice. Quick to curry favour, came the reply from another
member: "With the NGMA label, there'll be enough suckers who would
be willing." Another Delhi painter, given to brooding melancholy,
raised an academic point. "Artistic judgements are both subjective
and driven by current tastes. Who are we to decide for all time to come
what is worth keeping and what is dead wood? If one were to go by the
current international trend, anything which is not an installation with
animal carcasses on display is passe," she said. So on and on went
the discussion without any resolution, leaving the artist and NGMA Director
Rajiv Lochan in a bind. Last heard, the committee was yet to take a final
decision on the matter. The art world, however, is abuzz with passionate
debates both for and against the minister's move.
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MANNING THE HOT SEAT: After a long reign
of babus, an artist, Lochan, is again the NGMA director
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| There is much that is
wrong with NGMA but Gandhi's capacity for action is marred by her
abrasive manner. |
Now here, if ever, is a departure from the past-far
away from the time when the culture minister was a distant icon ensconced
in the labyrinthine Shastri Bhavan like some absentee landlord content
to harvest photo ops. Now we have a proactive culture minister and a professional
director, Lochan, at the NGMA-and the combination could do wonders for
the organisation. Only Gandhi's handling of the NGMA (and other art organisations)
leans unabashedly towards the surgical. In a jiffy, after taking office,
she has made her presence felt across the cultural establishment, from
the hoary but lifeless Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts to the
hapless NGMA.
By all accounts, when the advisory panel of
the NGMA met last month, few guessed they were in for such surprises.
The first was the presence of the minister herself and second was the
hugely expanded list of the members of the board itself. Apart from the
usual ex-officio members, a handful of eminent artists and art critics,
the committee-in keeping with the market-oriented times-now includes four
gallery owners: Gandhy, Gita Mehra and Ashish Balram Nagpal from Mumbai
and the trendy, omnipresent Apparao, nominally out of Chennai.
Of these, while the rest are respectable names
from the art trade, Nagpal, an actor-turned-impresario-turned-small-time
art dealer, is best recalled for his association with Pritish Nandy when
the latter was busy trying to become the self-appointed kingmaker of the
art market through the pages of The Illustrated Weekly of India and, later,
The Sunday Observer. No wonder the Delhi and Kolkata gallery owners are
sore about this Mumbai-heavy representation. "Even if they did not
consider me good enough," laments the owner of a leading south Delhi
gallery, "how could they ignore someone as eminent as Ebrahim Alkazi
of Art Heritage, Delhi, or as active as Rakhee Sarkar of the Centre for
International Modern Art, Kolkata?"
However, to be fair to the minister, there is
indeed a lot that is wanting and much that is wrong with the NGMA and
other art institutions under her charge. Instinctively-or perhaps with
some semi-informed prompting-she has put her hand on the pulse of these
institutions and found them at best weak, if not silent altogether. Gandhi
would do well were she to start a process of consultation with the art
community and build a wider consensus for her rather radical ideas. What
mars her capacity for action is probably her abrasive manner and her hurry
to "be done with it here and now".
If only she realised that there are no full
stops in the 5,000 year continuum that is Indian culture-only conjunctions
and continuities. And if only, in this world of assimilated metaphors,
Maneka Gandhi remembered that Little Miss Muffets invariably make for
better survivors than Red Riding Hoods.
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