‘Imag(in)ing the Immediate’ – Curating from a National Collection

Any collection of works of art symptomatically represents the aesthetic choices of the collector. Besides, the collection intrinsically holds the socio-cultural and politico-economic ‘narratives’ of a particular time during which the process of collection is done. An individual collector has the freedom to go by his/her very private aesthetic judgment with or without the help of a textual history or any other critical interventions. In an ideal situation, an art collection has two purposes; one, it indicates the collector’s intention to share the cultural legacy of his/her times. Two, it translates the cultural legacy into monetary gains. While the former is done for the disinterested aesthetic satisfaction, the latter is mediated through various considerations of history, criticism and (economic) value.

When a public cultural agency plays the role of a collector, the norms that generally direct a private art collection, fail to hold the fort. Here the norms become more and more stringent on the one hand and on the other they open up various provisions to be inclusive rather than exclusive. However, a national collection is supposed to be representative, liberal and confirmative in several senses. The principles of collection indicate that the collected works should be of historical worth and should stand the test of time, clime and fame. In a democratic country like ours, a national collection should not represent a singular ideology. It should, in a way represent the democratic fabric of the nation.

National Lalit Kala Akademi has been collecting works of art for the last five decades. Since its inception till date it has collected almost four thousand pieces of works of art from various artists. A democratically elected panel of judges presides over this annual selection process and any cursory look at the works would reveal that the respective selection committees have made their sincere efforts to make this national collection as varied as possible. Also, the art collection of National Lalit Kala Akademi tells us how it is different from the reputed private collections almost done during the same time frame. Their aesthetic worth could be disputable especially when we consider the textual histories that we have developed around our art practices over a period of fifty years. When such a collection is thrown open for curatorial interventions, it becomes a real challenge before the curator.

As a curator, I think all those four thousand works that I have personally browsed through, perhaps do not match up with the art historical and critical parameters that our art scene has laid out by now. A second thought enlightens me as I am inclined to think about this collection as a field of research; a research on the aesthetic preferences, choices, selections and rebellions of the artists and the concerned agencies during a prescribed timeframe. During my exhilarating journey through this national collection, I was confronted by a problem that any researcher would face when he/she starts the re-search. Do I need to simulate the representational politics/policy of the agency that engendered this collection? Or should I go with a particular thematic so that I can cull the works out of this collection for my project, without heeding much to the ‘famous collectible names’ in the collection?

My curatorial instincts told me, as I progressed through the collection, that I should stick to the latter as it would at once bring out the richness of the collection itself and at the same time give me sufficient freedo to exercise my curatorial rights. Hence, I started identifying/selecting the works for their contemporaneity. For me, in the case of this collection, contemporaneity means the ‘present-ness’ of the works with the times of their production. How did they correspond to their times of origin? How did the artists engage themselves with the contemporary ideas prevalent during the times of these works in consideration?

‘Imag(in)ing the Immediate’ as a thematic evolved as I was looking for the answers to the abovementioned questions. As one can see from the selected works (most of them are done between 1960s and 1980s), they have a strong correspondence with their contemporary times. Though, art historically speaking, there was a strong movement of abstract art between these three decades, to avoid the generic sense of the times, I decided to look for such narratives that exemplified the socio-political and cultural vibrations of the immediate time. The artists, as seen in the exhibited works, were ‘imaging’ and ‘imagining’ their ‘nation’ and ‘locations’ within their pictorial as well as sculptural formats.

In order to image and imagine the immediate, the artists need to be responsive not only in a philosophical way but also in a physical way. However, expressionist aggressiveness is not a pre-requisite always for aesthetic mediations. Hence, we come to witness an interface between aggressive physical posture as seen in the works of A.Ramachandran and the subtle narratives of Tej Singh. Political turmoil to personal anxieties, rural fantasies to geometrical representations of interiors, from political satire to polite admiration- we come across a series of themes amongst the selected artists and their respective works of art.

‘Imag(in)ing the Immediate also attempts to see how the artists who are now called the ‘modernists’ brought two realities- of rural and urban- together in their works. As we all know, the decades in question here are hailed as the nation building years. Whether the artists wanted it or not, they could not escape from engaging with this process of nation building. The political parlance of the enthusiastic years that followed the formal declaration of national independence and the gloomy years that ensued, in several ways, find their expression in these works. The polemical polarization of the rural-urban divide, almost corresponding to the national political agenda, is celebrated and critiqued by the artists from their own contemporary perspectives and political stances.

As I curator, I find it interesting to see the works of highly established artists like Tyeb Mehta, K.G.Subramanyan, A. Ramachandran, Bhupen Khakkar, Rameshwar Broota, Gogi Saroj Pal, Arpita Sing, Arpana Caur and so on juxtaposed with the works done by lesser known artists with almost no catalogue details. ‘Imag(in)ing the Immediate’ is all about this Juxtaposition of images and imaginings of our modern times as collected and preserved by the National Lalit Kala Akademi.

Nation is a narration. Similarly, narration is also has the qualities of a nation. Each narration creates its own boundaries and linguistic patterns, the same way a nation creates its own boundaries and linguistic structures. In ‘Imag(in)ing the Immediate’ I have made an attempt to see these works as a nation and narration, at times collapsing into each other to create a new narrative.

I thank the National Lalit Kala Akademi for offering this chance to curate a show from its collection. My thanks are due to Prof.V.Nagdas, Chairman, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi. I take this opportunity to thank all the staff members of Lalit Kala Akademi, who made this project a reality.

– JohnyML

Cover Photo: Title : Tulsi Vivah, Artist: Balvant Rai A. Joshi