Since early April this year, KHOJ has seen an outburst of programming around public art, elements of which were visible during the performance art residency organised by it in August. The Dilli Dur Ast camp, the video workshop by Sophie Ernst as also the associate residency of Saina Anand all were run in parallel, creating the ground for the KHOJ Public Art residency. The residency, which began on August 18, brought together five artists from Amsterdam, Jakarta, Bangalore, Lahore, and yet another who revels in working between two locations Mumbai and Bastar. Helmut Dick, Jasmeen Patheja, Ali Talpur and Navjot Altaf were accompanied by Takahiro Noguchi, the sharp-minded critic in residence and a Fulbright scholar researching public/community art in India. As one began to critically engage with this sudden flux taking place in the fibre of the cities artistic practice, it became clear that as critics, curators and art lovers, we (as yet) don't know the language and the strategies with we can engage with public art. Public art is still understood in terms of high art and hence dichotomies like artist vs. citizen still exist. However, one thing is clear, the most effective of public art practitioners are those who have learned to forget the anxiety of art and non-art, and yet retain deep aesthetic sensibilities in their public interventions.
The KHOJ project sought to encourage new genre art, involving an exploration of new media. The residency was aimed at inculcating an awareness of public art that seeks to intervene into urban or community visual-scapes. Alternatively using media and technology, public artists revel in working outside the gallery and the studio, often choosing to produce work in dialogue with the public. Sometimes referred to as community art, such art blurs the lines between art and life, often by incorporating elements of performance art or public participation. Of course, there still remain a lot of theoretical problems to be engaged with and one still strives to be able to define the new genre in public art, which is only now becoming visible in India. There have been some scattered but bold interventions; some camps are being organised, workshops are taking off and there is also a bit of funding in place for a few new genre public artists.
New genre public art, as an art form, typically focuses on community building and sometimes is regarded as an instrument for change. There is usually some issue that becomes part of it, and public art is increasingly being understood as being about thinking with people around you to feel more connected to the world. New genre public art uses both traditional and non-traditional media to communicate and interact with a broad and diversified audience about issues directly relevant to their lives, basing itself on dialogue. The attempt is to be able to develop art designed for life outside the gallery, art that emphasises a process of engagement with the public. Like in England in the 50s, strands of influence are seeping in and networks are being formed, all leading to a new radical urban youth culture that is as yet in its nascent stage in India.
The engagement with Helmut Dick's works is an attempt to engage with and document an important intervention, an intervention into the cities understanding of artistic practice. Helmut Dick uses quirky and often outrageous public installations through which he plays with the humour of the urban citizen. He delights in making you confront the unexpected. His works are located more in the process of execution and how the visual finally shapes up is but a part of it.
Helmut Dick organised a series of installations, which were shown on three different crowded squares in Delhi. These were roving public installations/performances that were periodically unloaded, arranged in various places, picked up and moved on. Helmut Dick's bold and inventive approach resulted in works that evoked strong emotional reactions from the viewers. Still, the red line in his works was their sharp humour and absurdity, which made them multi-dimensional and interesting to approach. Helmut's site-specific works were based on careful research of the physical/social aspects of the site, in an attempt to forge strong connections and interactions between the work and its surroundings.
2006, Rahul Bhattacharya�
rahul bhattacharya
Joint Secretary
Performers Independent
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let the river flow
