Protest, Paintings and Speaking Stones
Renu Ramanath |
“I am not much interested in art as such,” said the environmental activist. He was not exactly disdainful, I noted thankfully. The activist was talking about the campaign for which his life was dedicated at present – to save a river and waterfall from an upcoming hydel electric project.
So, where did art come in, you wonder ? The activist (or, rather the activists), were organising a protest by artists the next day. Which meant, the artists were to assemble at a public place and paint there, in public. That was the mode of protest. And the paintings, which would be produced as part of the protest, could be sold, said the activist. “What if we could sell one or two paintings and make a fortune !” the activist exclaimed wistfully. “The campaign could be sustained for a couple of months.” Yes, but he was not interested in art as such.
I told him that his attitude to art was not much different from what the dark forces of development that he was fighting against adopted towards the river and water falls he was trying to protect. They were not interested in the river or its ecology, but wanted to exploit its waters for generating power. He was not interested in art or its history or culture but wanted to exploit it for generating …. power (money) to fight against them.
He was horrified, and tried for twenty minutes to convince me I had totally misunderstood him.
The conversation took place at the opening of V.K.Rajan’s granite sculptures held at Durbar Hall Art Centre in Kochi. I wondered whether the activist was aware of the stark reality that the sculptures placed all around him were made of chunks of granite blasted out of some quarry. And quarries were not exactly environmental friendly.
*
Speaking of stones, N.N.Rimzon’s ‘Speaking Stones,’ the installation work that has travelled many parts of the world, had arrived in Kochi this July. The work had been part of the exhibitions, ‘Private Mythology: Contemporary Art from India,’ (Japan / 1998), ‘’body.city – New Perspectives from India,’ (House of World Cultures, Berlin / 2003) and the travelling show, ‘Edge of Desire – Recent Art in India,’ (Asia Society and Art Gallery of Western Australia / 2005). However, it was being presented in Kerala for the first time.
‘Speaking Stones,’ comprising a fibreglass figure of a squatting man, his face covered by hands in an obvious gesture of despair amidst stones pointing their sharp tips towards the sky resembling a scattered graveyard and images of violence culled from media (news photographs, mainly) placed under the stones, had been hailed as a direct response to the eruption of communal violence in post-Independence India.
The work had been executed in Thiruvananthapuram, at the time Rimzon was working there as Lecturer in the Department of Sculpture at the Govt. College of Fine Arts. It reflects one of Rimzon’s most deep-seated concerns – about the presence of violence in our surrounding society. The work had been much acclaimed in all the centres it had travelled to, mainly because of the direct reference to violence and the related trauma.
Quite pleased at displaying the well-travelled work in his native State for the first time, Rimzon recalled an aborted attempt by the Kerala Lalithakala Akademi years back to exhibit ‘Speaking Stones,’ at the Durbar Hall Art Centre. However, it could not be executed at that time due to some problems related to transporting the work.
Installation by Manoj Brahmamangalam
With ‘Speaking Stones,’ Kashi is launching a new series of exhibitions. Titled ‘Only ONE,’ the series will present a single work from a senior artist at the café space in Fort Kochi.
Kashi was celebrating its re-opening not only with ‘Speaking Stones.’ At their Bazaar Road upstairs Gallery in Mattancherry, Manoj Brahmanamgalam, a young sculptor from Kochi, had displayed his gallery installation. ‘Shadow Remnants,’ was the result of around six weeks of continuous work Manoj had put up in the gallery. The installation that took up almost the entire length of the gallery floor (actual dimensions – 36 ft x 11 ft), portrayed a protracted human figure lying on its back with a maze of entangled plastic tubes running from it to the roof.
The thin, transparent tubes were filled with red and blue coloured liquid and small toy cars were placed amidst the knots of the tubes. The figure was made out of a skeleton of bamboo over which clay was applied in thick layers. Manoj, who had studied art at the Govt. R.L.V. College of Fine Arts, had executed a couple of large scale installations in Fort Kochi and Chottanikkara, near Tripunithura earlier.
[PS: The ‘painters protest’ did take place the next day. The fate or fortune of the works created in the public park is unknown to me. May be, the activist’s dream got fulfilled ! The agitation still goes on. And, as if to make fools of all those who fight for and against hydel power projects, rain gods have closed the shutters over Kerala this year. Without the waters, where’s the power ?] |
