field notes from the Ramkinker Baij seminar- 2007
The three day symposium (16th, 17th and 18th February 2007) at Nandan Sadan, Kala Bhavana (Santiniketan) on Ramkinker Baij intended to address the dual issues of the 'National' and the 'Nature of Public', proposed by Anshuman Das Gupta. Eddy Chambers, a scholar from Bristol was one of the expected speaker. His book " Annotations" has more or less categorized the employees 'inside' Tate Modern galleries as 'whites' and those at the basement Cafetaria as 'coloured'. Hence he calls the gallery/museum culture of Europe as being 'whitewashed', while Carol Duncan calls them as places to perform rituals. Hailing as a protagonist of a movement--very similar to the Dalit movement in the context of Kannada literature of the 70s, for instance--his viewpoint would have been a matter of keen, comparative interest. In the 1980s Eddy led the art-society movement 'for' coloured artists in England. Ramkinker has been identified--almost for the first time in a clear loud voice— as a dalit, in both the seminars that intended to celebrate his centenary. (one at Bhuvaneshwar by Amit Mukhopadhyay in January 2007 and the other at Santiniketan seminar by Anshuman).
*
§
Where as the coordinator
Anshuman Dasgupta's (with
a ‘little’ help from his friends) attempt to galvanize the lethargy of
Santiniketan, (through creating an event which does not restrict
itself to a singular focus and thus (?) has an enhanced discursive
potential (?), yet somehow engaging itself with the various dimensions of the
Contemporary) is appreciable. The responses to his editorial/curatorial project
sabotage the project by responding to the curatorial project very literally.
Over three days the seminar presented (and unfolded) itself in a manner of a
loose cluster of ideas...some very powerfully presented, some mediocre and
others undeserving.
The outcome of the symposium, however, touched upon a set of unpredictable issues. A 'predictable silence' regarding the legitimacy of established hegemonic orders of visual epistemology clad the whole symposium , like those shawls cladding and forming a second skin to the Santiniketanites, throughout all seasons, over the decades. It is important to understand the mesmeric-spell that the place itself has/had upon the theoreticians--more so with the Kala Bhavana alumnus--now engaged in theorization. Arguably, the finger pointing out at the moon itself happened to become the goal of the symposium. Who is it and from where are we addressing the notion of Nation, Public and Public Art?
- One of the successes of the seminar
was that it created pockets of deep interest...sometimes laced with
conflict. Also in the context of Santiniketan it has to be viewed
as another introduction of a new contemporary. It somehow seems
imperative that one now has to explain the notion of this 'new
contemporary' before proceeding ahead with the narrative of the
seminar. Santiniketan imagines its identity by imagining for itself a
location that (allegedly) marginalizes the Contemporary and the
'West' (thereby completely marginalizing the (Contemporary West). Thus a
seminar primarily aimed at discussing (or aiming to be
discursive) around the language and framework of a certain 'New
Genre' (which incidentally is also negotiating an allegation that of
being elitist and a derivative
form of euro-American postmodernism containing within it structures of
late capitalist processes) is bound to have discussions laced with
conflicts between schools of thoughts. Actually it is in these conflicts
that contained and transmitted the ‘highpoints’ of the seminar.
- Many of the visiting speakers, panelists, observers were aware of their outsider status…conscious of being invited into the seminar as carriers of the 'new contemporary'…agents through whom this 'new contemporary' would/could decimate, potentially interpolating with the sub urban bhadralok which dominates the ground.
- The semiotics of hierarchised sitting
(all the speakers, panelists, observers along with dignitaries were seated
on chairs and the students nearly all (mostly) on the ground, and the
‘Asian’ habit of ‘taking off shoes’ ensured that from the first moment on
there was an ambience of being located in a zone where contemporary is
still (officially) kept (out) in the margins. Of course the ethnic
location of the ground ensured the privilege of experiencing some
brilliant hospitability, and the comfort of an pollution free environment,
and many a times one marveled at Santiniketan managing to resist the
onslaught of late capitalism…managing to remain in a zone in some kind of
an authentic zone. Parul Dave Mukherjee’s ‘Cosmopolitan Modernism:
Santiniketan from Elsewhere’, engages with this notions of cultural
authenticity located in and around Santiniketan and how it is engaged with
from various ‘contemporary’ locations.
§
The problematization of Santiniketan’s
neo-traditionalist claims was further acted out when in a response to Abha
Seth’s paper (as a part of Shivaji k Panikkar,
Abha Sheth and Parvez Kabir’s collaborative paper ‘Art and Ideology of Swaminarayan
Hinduism: Issues of Modernity, Religion and Gender’) the issue of operational patriarchy
in Santiniketan and how it might be influencing the staff recruitment policy at
Kala Bhavan was visited.
§ The conflict within Santiniketan’s neo-traditionalist claims was further
articulated during the plenary session (open forum) when
questions around the teacher student hierarchies were visited…through
observations about student participation…observations coming from being touched
by the hospitality offered through the use of students, yet not being able to
hear their voices within the seminar proceedings. These ‘articulations from the
outside’ primarily came from concerns about the absolute invisibility of
student as Peer relationship, and a feeling that it was being denied due to a
traditionalist understanding of the Guru-Sishya parampara.
Santiniketan is a place of varying and constantly metamorphosing meanings and representations alleged to already familiar and acknowledged signs. So much for its ambiguous site-specificity. While operating from inside, one would feel that (s)he is inside a double layer of art institution and museum, held together. They feel the warmth within twin layers of dual functions (a museum and an art school), and in between lies a void—like the walls of a coffee flask. This has been so since long. A library designed in Vatican by Michelangelo is turned into a museum, because of the popularity of the artist who designed it. Hence categorizing Kala Bhavana as a mere academic space for a dialogue is very defeatist classification. Everyone had to address the issues raised--from the very premise within which the subject had operated.Thus the main 'address' was regarding 'who' and from 'where' is it that the notion of Nation and Public is being addressed. It was inevitable for the outline of the apparatus of addressing agency to be identified and tested before addressing the constructs of 'Nation' and 'Public'.
In other words, it was the 'position' from wherein everyone--who falls into either of the two (easy) categories of Art History proper and Cultural Theory—operated, that was, incidentally, the actual issues addressed! More or less, there were predictable positions in the form of conclusions that were foreseen beforearguments. The pleasure of predictability is like a second screening of a suspense thriller. The demythified yet holds the pleasure of unveiling the secrecy of the thrill.
When (and wherever) such a thing happens, when conclusions preface an argument, the one thing gifted to the keen audience is the kind of subtleties that is employed towards realizing those predictable positions.Does it mean that expecting anything beyond or radical, is, in fact, itself a radical demand that actually is the premise of those who are not yet institutionalized and or do not understand the nuances of the importance of being institutional. The question was either to look into the subtle-registers from within a well known issue or expect radical, drastic, newer methodology and results. It all depended on which side of the Nandan Sadan pillars were you positioned—the addressee or the addressed. Perhaps predictability and adefinite self-positioning, are inevitable parts of being institutional. In other words, what was being told was engaged in addressing the issue of how it was being told, that assigns a sort of self-address oraathmaavalokana (introspection)! You don't need an external agency to perform the Indian act of self-referentiality. Neither would it go off that very easily for those who are conscientious.
Any
intention to address the dual (?) issues of the 'National' and the 'Nature of
Public' through the historical, cultural, and political persona of Ramkinker
Baij can be deeply problematic if the notion of a persona, national, nature and
public are not interrogated and (possibly) fragmented. The presentations by Irit Rogoff “The Implicated -
Reflections on Audience”, -revolving
“around the question of 'what does it mean to take part in culture"?
Beyond the roles that culture allots us, roles of visitors, voters, listeners
etc. ” (from the seminar
abstracts) -Grant Watson’s Notes Towards an Exhibition, - which was an attempt to look at “the work of Ramkinker as a starting point
from which a network of ideas can emerge” (from the seminar abstracts) (and is also a
strategy in a politico cultural project around rescuing communism in euro-America)
- Parul
Dave Mukherjee’s ‘Cosmopolitan Modernism: Santiniketan from Elsewhere’, Amit Mukhopadhyay’s
Love,
play, labour: Before and after independence, R Sivakumar’s ‘Ramkinker and
the Dual Commitments of Modernism’, Shivaji k Panikkar, Abha Sheth and Parvez
Kabir’s collaborative paper
‘Art and Ideology of Swaminarayan Hinduism: Issues of Modernity, Religion and
Gender’, Artist
Presentation by the Raqs media
group, H.A. Anil Kumar’s
“Reworking on the notion of ‘Modernity’ and the ‘Public’ “,Abhishek Hazra’s ‘Meta Meat: Some Initial
Observations On Recent Online Phenomena’ and Tapati Guha Thakurta’s panel paper around public art practices in
early modern India; successfully engaged with these concept metaphors of
persona, national, nature and public.
§ However the possibilities of developing on
and engaging with the discursive potential of the inter textualities of these
engagements was not properly engaged with thus (only) leaving a range of
‘interesting starting points’.
*
When Irit Rogoff spent about a hour and an half to speak and read out her paper, she had retained her sense of that position from within which she was speaking: (a) "I thought I should read out the paper, since that would justify the amount of energy and economy spent on me" and (b) "I believe in the whole world being a construct and the world is about events rather than objects". Between these two sentences she was actually suggesting the possibility of a future-academy which would not reject the past, but definitely the burden and skepticism about the past was pronounced. I would like to connect this point with what Geeta Kapur said (" De-nuding formalism") at one point while speaking about Navjot Altaf's community projects. Both the speakers were pointing out at two aspects/positions of Modernity and Nation that become mutually restless while placed next to each other: the commoner and the specialist positions. 'Addressal of the energy spent on speech' and 'omnipresence of formalism' were positioned next to 'the world as a set of events rather than objects' and 'denuding of a favourite mode of visual approach'. This justification seems mysterious, even to me.
Does it mean that it is the positions we take that matters, (only) if it is well articulated?
Shudhabratha (of RAQS Media) 's presentation became more articulate due to his knowledge of the language (that Ramkinker spoke) Bengali. His talk was, along with Irit's presentation, aimed at problematising the historicity of the visual-pedagogic construct of a dialogue or what is given as art historical discourse.
If Irit's position, when she calls the whole world a construct, seemed too 'liberal' or when Shudhabratha's call to make art function like science, deleting the 'boundaries of hierarchies'—what both actually meant was not as important as the question: why did we feel the necessity to an 'alternative' and if so, why do we opt for art and science to be liberal, general and prophetic? That is the kind of 'silent zones' that the overall symposium was construing throughout rather than de-mythify, apart from the outcome of a seminary: the usual insightful fluencies and articulations. It is like Ramkinker Baij's installed sculptures, specific to the site, playing the contemporary game of hide-and-seek between reality and hyper-reality. Santalis walking around the "Santal Family" sculpture has a potential to immediately re-position the art community as intruders and delve into a play between the reality and the hyper-reality of the Santals and their representation.
*
This leads us to the third question, the question of Indian English. Would the problem of the
refusal to budge out of the defined positions (if it is a problem, that
is) be negated if Indian art history was predominantly written in any
Indian language!? English, for instance, as the unwritten official
language of/for Indian art discourse assigns the role of behaving like a
'pan-national'—artists, critics and curators. No Indian literary giants
can claim such a pan-national position, but for the politically
incorrect ones, owing to the regional specification of Indian languages.
As per today, the colonial discourse is the ink evident in writing the visual cultural map of Indian, by and large.
The multifaceted dimensions that English has acquired in the
historicity (and historicisation) of Indian visual culture have led to
the formation of embarrassments, inferiority complexes, defendable
forts. By and large it is a language which refutes to remain passive
language in Indian art history!
Anybody reading and writing about Indian art in English will only be
able to re-represent the visual art, for, his/her initial concern will
be focused upon representing English as an apparatus to address the
subject.
The performatory gesture of 'reading out a paper' is also a
self-positioning that only tangentially touches the audience's
expectation for clarity. Arguably, the reading-out act of a seminar paper is a desire to say more in a condensed form.
This is where the major aspect of 'predictable silence' occupies a
hegemonic order through a language in the 'formation of national' in
visual arts.However, the question of historicity, living traditions, the past and its pensive connectivity with the current affairs were rather idealistically waived off in the seminar, like the seemingly predictable fate of the innumerable murals and sculptures in and around Kala Bhavana. All of us know the end of it—very predictable. Paradoxically, the means employed to achieve this is where we find solace and hopes.
*
This was a symposium I attended at Santiniketan after one and a
half decade. It was homecoming to me in more than one way. I had become
more keen to the delivered words, the meanings they 'project' and 'hide'
at the same time and sentences like "
he could master spontaneously at the cost of coherence" (R.Siva Kumar's words about Ram kinker) immediately would trigger off an idea in me to jot in my notebook as, "Binode Bihari Mukherjee was an exception to this. He could be spontaneous and coherent at the same
". This is just a case in point. Read between these two sentences in
italics. And add Geeta Kapur's "Denuding formalism". The whole history
of Indian art and hence art writing and (further) hence the 'construct'
of our mindset could be laid bare. Not to question anyone of these two
main models because then we actually will be positioning ourselves into
an innocent, greyer categories that usually is occupied by the
unaccountable. Also, there is a specific ironic position that we take in
case we outrightly contest these two positions. What is the position
from wherein we locate ourselves, while doing so? One or the other of
the two models. A third position, a la "
literature oriented, subaltern studies, mostly by Brahminical constructs"
(in R SivKumar's words) is one of the most radical thing ever said by my
teacher, that I have read or heard from him. I need not inform the
reader that being radical is no privileged position anymore, at least
for Shiv
da. All these contain that what is a construct and mindset that
framed our ways of thinking and feeling about art in India/n and about
Indian art.
Nowhere in the history of Indian modern and contemporary art has the positivist readings of casteism been addressed, till date, again, unlike, say, the bandaya (revolutionary) movement of 1970s Kannada literature. Eddie's writings are deceptively simple, easy to understand but not so very easy to comprehend or negotiate. His arguments are like sharp-knife-like edges at the end of what seems to be expanded soft balloons. Eddie would have definitely been an interventionist, no matter whether he spoke from the audience or speaker's position. The symposium was all about what art pedagogy presumed to be an 'interventionist' position. That would have been the take off point for Eddie and Ramkinker, as well.
“Ramkinker has been identified--almost for
the first time in a clear loud voice— as a dalit, in both the seminars that
intended to celebrate his centenary. (One at Bhuvaneshwar by Amit Mukhopadhyay
in January 2007 and the other at Santiniketan seminar by Anshuman). Nowhere in
the history of Indian modern and contemporary art has the positivist readings
of casteism been addressed, till date, again, unlike, say, the bandaya (revolutionary)
movement of 1970s Kannada literature.”
Writes H.A.Anil Kumar in his ‘Denuding
Formalism’ in this world of ‘Constructs’. Somehow the question of a dalit in Santiniketan
was never really addressed during the seminar, though some scholars attempted to visit
the question. There was a visible
discomfort from the ground every time the Ramkinker’s dalit location was highlighted;
it was as if an ‘other’ was
being violently imposed on the self.
Rahul Bhattacharya
2007
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