Current Exhibition
Rabi Art Gallery is organising an exhibition on Contemporary Art at Academy of Fine Arts, North Gallery from 12th May to 18th May.
The painting of renowned artists like M. F. Husain, K. Adimoolam, Laxma Goud, T. Vaikuntam, K.G. Subramanyam and several other renowned and promising artists will be exhibited in the exhibition.
Sojourns of Modernity: Painting in India by
MRINAL GHOSH
Eminent Art Critic, (Ananda Bazar Patrika)
20 April 2008
Our country is now vibrant with various sorts of art activities. There was a time when art was isolated from commerce. Art was practiced purely for art’s sake. It was an aesthetic activity, to some extent meditative. Patronization was very limited. Only some governmental and non-governmental institutions used to extend their support for the artists and art activities, which too was very inadequate. The artists knew for their survival they would have to depend on some other activities mostly not connected with their art practice. Such was the case since the beginning of our modern era till the decade of 1960-s. The situation started changing during the decade of 1980-s. Commercial art galleries were coming up. Avenues to bring art for public viewing increased. Big business houses came up to patronize. Commerce started intruding the field of art. During 1990-s the situation developed further. Economic globalization played some positive role in this context. Art and commerce got connected in an international circuit.
But beyond the big metropolitan cities there was and still is very little spread of this circuit. It is well known; Santiniketan has played a very magnificent role towards development of our modernity. Our art could not attain the position it is experiencing now without the devoted contribution of some of the Santiniketan masters. The works of Rabindranath, Nandalal, Binodebehari and Ramkinkar have opened up new horizons of our modern movement. Even now young artists coming out from Kala-bhavan are tracing new directions through their experiments. Yet till very recent time there was no commercial art gallery at Santinikaten.
Very recently the situation has changed. A new gallery, known as ‘Rabi Art Gallery’, has come up. It has been opened by Sumanta Paul in the memory of his father Rabi Paul. Rabi Paul was a reputed artist and an avid collector. He was keenly associated with Ramkinkar as his disciple and young friend. This contact inspired him towards formation of his own artistic ideal and value judgment. His collection started with the works of Santiniketan School and gradually expanded to include works from all India panorama. Apart from collection and his own creativity, he also made some mark in the area of art studies.
After his untimely demise in 1995 his son Sumanta Paul took up the mantle and started working on developing the collection. He has also felt it his duty to expose the collection to the connoisseurs and general art-loving public. The spread of art awareness is also his motto. This is the context against which the present exhibition is being mounted. It showcases the works of the artists from all India panoramas, the three of the senior most being Ramen Chakraborty, born in 1902, Ramkinkar, born in 1906, and M.F. Husain born 1915. From these artists coming to limelight during 1930-s and 1940-s, the exhibition traces the evolution of painting by the artists of the subsequent decades till the recent years of twenty-first century. Some of the young artists included in the show are born after 1975.
During this six or seven decades art practice in India has developed in different directions positing a number of changing paradigms. The show induces us to trace that development, which throws light not only on the evolution of the norms of art-practice, but also on the changes of the social realities. There are works from three senior Santiniketan artists. They are Ramendranath Chakraborty (1902 – 1955), Ramkinkar (1906 – 1980) and K.G. Subramanyan (1924). Their works symbolically represent how a new paradigm of artistic form emerged from Santiniketan after Rabindranath established Kala-bhavan as a part of Visva-Bharati in 1919. Nandalal was entrusted with the charge of Kala-bhavan. All these three artists got the inspiration from their ‘mastermoshai’ Nandalal and opened up new formal structure of our modernity assimilating local traditions with global ethos, which has often been termed as ‘contextual modernism’. It is encouraging that the present exhibition starts at that point of new emergence of one of our most important modernistic trends.
Next phase of our modern movement were initiated by the artists of 1940-s. There are several phases of this movement. One emerged from the tumultuous social reality of that decade that gave rise to the devastating famine of 1943. Jainul Abedin (1917 – 76), Chittaprosad (1913 – 78) and Somnath Hore (1921 – 2006) were three of the important artists whose works emerged as a reaction of this tragic reality. They were committed to this socio-temporal reality through out their life. This exhibition does not focus on this trend of the forties but it presents with considerable seriousness the works of the artists of that decade who created an alternative trend working united through formation of artists group. Social reality was the motive force of their creativity also. To stress that reality and also to bring out an indigenous identity they tried to assimilate western modernistic modes with traditional folk elements. They mostly discarded the revivalistic modes of neo-Indian school. They were inspired by the works of their predecessors like Gaganendranath, Jamini Roy, amrita sher-Gill and Rabindranath. Calcutta Group was formed in Calcutta during 1943, in the same year of the famine. Works of two artists of this group, Paritosh Sen (1918) and Gobardhan Ash (1907 – 1996), have been presented in this show.
Bombay Progressive Group was formed in 1947. Works of three members of this group are presented here. They are M.F. Husain (1915), F.N. Souza ( 1924 – 2002) and S.H. Raza (1922). Husain’s works show a particular trend of assimilation of folk. Souza transformed primitivistic tradition. Raza’s abstractions internalize Indian spiritual symbolism. Among the other artists of 1940-s there are V.S. Gaitonde (1924 – 2001), Ramkumar (1924), and Krishen Khanna (1925). Gaitonde is rarely seen at Kolkata. He is an abstractionist, one of those who initiated non-figurative painting in India with serious intent during the modern era. It should however be remembered, the first abstractionist in our modernity was Rabindranath himself. His doodlings done between 1924 and 1930 were ideal examples of non-figurative art. Gaitonde was born in Nagpur, trained in JJ School of Art, Mumbai and lived during later part of his life at Delhi. His abstractions are spiritual in nature. Whereas Ramkumar’s abstraction is structural derived from urban landscape. This Delhi based artist and accomplished writer was born in Simla and received his initial training in art from Sailoz Mukherjee. Krishen Khanna, also a Delhi based artist, is a realist, distorts his figures through expressionist fervor with a rebellious intent against socio-temporal degradations.
Our modernity attained a firm root through the works of artists of 1960-s. It could achieve a stable identity through assimilation of local and global traditions. The expressions expanded in various directions absorbing multifarious values of life. Among the artists of sixties presented in this show there are Rabin Mondal (1928), Bijan Chowdhury (1931), Prokash Karmakar (1933), Dhiraj Chowdhury (1936) and Jogen Chowdhury (1939) from West Bengal. One point of unity among these artists is that all of them are figurative, rebellious in nature and distort their figures to express social turmoil. Among the artists of other regions, there is Manu Parekh (1939) from Delhi, K. Adimoolam (1938) and Laxma Goud (1940) from south and Himmat Shah (1933) from western zone.
The artists of the sixties created a new paradigm of expression transforming the norms developed till forties. Barring few exceptions this formal structure continued till 1980-s. The complexities of social realities were however absorbed. Trends towards abstractions also increased. Among the artists of seventies and eighties there are Jahar Dasgupta, Asit Paul and Samir Aich. All of them are figurative artists and works with a social consciousness.
There was a strong shift of paradigm during the 1990-s. The artists who came to lime light during this last decade of twentieth century or first decade of the new century passed through a globalized environment. Economic globalization transformed the world and our country to a great extent. It has erased to a considerable extent the national international divide. The extensive development of information technology has brought the entire world under the fingertip. The forms of art have thus been truly globalized. Yet most intriguing aspect of this universalization is how the very acute local reality is treated through these forms and how intricate local traditions are very subtly assimilated in the total formal structure. The complicacy of life, the intricacies of technological development have made the expressions of the new generation a bit complex. In the new mode of modernity evolved during 1990-s the ‘signifier’-‘signified’ relation of the forms has been very complex. Numbers of artists born during 1960-s and 1970-s have been presented in this exhibition whose works belong to this new mode of expression.
The show thus sojourns through the evolution of modernity since 1940-s to this twenty-first century.
Sumanta Paul, well known collector. I have watched his growing interest and love for the world of art. He has struggled to acquire artistic treasures to build up a collection carrying forward the legacy of his father, a well known art lover. His motivation to move in this field is strong and this has given him the mental strength to overcome all obstacles to gain a foothold nationally.
His zeal to promote talented artists is laudatory. It’s my sincere belief that, Sumanta will go far in his desire to expand his collection and exhibit it to the public, so that the ordinary man on street can enjoy and appreciate the aesthetic beauty of the art world. My blessings and good wishes will remain with him in all his Endeavour’s in this field. I extend my warm wishes and sincere regards..
RABIN MONDAL
Eminent Artist, Kolkata
Future Exhibitions to be held - Sept 2008 at Mumbai ;
Dec 2008 at Mumbai ;
Jan 2009 at Hyderabad. |
