Kochi-Sketchbook - Renu Ramanath

Talks on Trendy Art

Mumbai seemed a different Mumbai. Not much on the surface. But deep within, down somewhere, something had changed.

My first encounter with the Maximum City was some ten years ago. In 1999. Arriving from Pune, in an early morning train that crawled through what seemed like an endless ocean of human dwellings, the city had hit all my five senses at the first instance itself. And years later, it never fails to overwhelm.

The first thing that hits you in Mumbai is the presence of human dwellings. People seem to be living everywhere. No space is unsuitable for living, apparently. The whole of Mumbai is a huge living space which has been carved out by people according to their individual capacities. Everywhere you look, people live. In the shacks that line the roads, under trees, inside pipes, beneath walls, in crumbling buildings, in spanking new blocks. Everywhere you look, the cage-like frameworks of window cases from apartment blocks loom large, attempts of people to grab the maximum possible living space out of thin air.

This time also, the first visit post-Recession, post-Terror, it did not fail, in the first impression. The river of humanity was still flowing. The suburban trains still hissed past. the traffic jams were still there. People still teemed along the Marine Drive. Couples grazed shoulders. At the Gateway of India, local tourists gaped up at the repair work going on at the burnt-down dome and balconies of the Taj. Life was still flowing.

Yet, the change in the air was palpable. Some fizz was absent. Like beer kept open for too long. The liquid is still there for you. But, when the bubbles disappear, you know, only the bitterness remains.

Absence of fizz is sometimes good. Because, it helps to bring out the real taste. The taste of reality that people in this Maximum City had chosen to forget for quite some time. It is good to feel normal for a little while, at least. Yes, that was what the present change in Mumbai was all about, I felt suddenly.  People seemed suddenly normal again. Especially in the artist community. At the opening of Rajan’s (Krishnan) exhibition (for which we were in Mumbai this time), at Bombay Art Gallery in Colaba, there was a decent crowd present. The biggest crowd in recent times, someone commented. Is that so, I wondered. People don’t go out these days, someone else said. Especially to art openings, someone else added.

Flipping through the city papers, I found something else. The Events column had fewer listings art exhibitions, hardly any images. The Page 3-s were also devoid of art events, and artists. May be, the galleries are not interested in pursuing the general media these days. Or, the general media, grappling with their own problems, is not interested in devoting space to art. I remembered how the representatives of artists community were conspicuously absent from the TV screens throughout the days and nights of the terror strike in September, 2008.

But, there was more to the change. At the opening of Rajan’s ‘Four Paintings,’ those who came lingered for longer time in front of the paintings, discussed the works and spoke about art in general. Wasn’t that part of the change a little good !  An artist friend spoke ruefully of the heedless days of the past couple of years that had done some harm to his art.

Even then, I was a bit surprised, even taken aback a little, to hear that some people still spoke of trendy art. Now, talk on trendy art had always baffled me. And made me wary too.  Mainly because, all along, I had kept up the belief that art is timeless. Or, eternal, or immortal. Whatever word you use, art is something that had the power to live through centuries, surviving the onslaught of Time and History, surviving to tell the tales of humanity across the centuries. So, what has art got to do with trendiness ?

I had thought that people would, at least in this Mumbai-changed-a-little would stop talking of trendy art, at least for some time to come.

Back in Kochi, one hot and humid Sunday afternoon, a group of clamouring kids sat uneasily on plastic chairs lined up by the road side, at a make shift meeting venue along the Civil Station Road at Kakkanad, Ernakulam. The kids, along with anxious parents assembled around, were waiting for the results of a painting competition organised by the Thrikkakara Janakeeya Vayana Sala (People’s Reading Room of Thrikkakara), a local cultural organisation.

Now, these local cultural organisations that bear the banners like ‘Arts & Sports Club’ or ‘Vayana Sala’ (Reading Room) had been an important cultural phenomenon in Kerala. These ‘clubs’ that had mushroomed during the Eighties and Nineties had played a big role in spreading literacy, inculcating reading habit and encouraging various art forms including serious theatre and cinema. The recent years, of course, had seen a lull in their activities, a result of the changing socio-cultural landscape of Kerala.

The organisers of the Thrikkakara Janakeeya Vayanasala were trying to regenerate this culture, bringing back the sense of organising and camaraderie that would be generated from such activities among the youth in suburban localities. They had a good team. The kids participating in the competition came from a cross section of the society. Among the anxious parents assembled there were T-shirt and jeans clad dapper-looking dads and well-coiffered moms, along with men and women who might be working for daily wages.

There were more than 80 participants, in junior, sub-junior and senior sections.  The ‘themes,’ were ‘Pollution,’ and ‘Home and Surroundings.’ The outcome was anything but predictable, just like any children’s painting competition. It was not how the kids had painted, but that they had assembled there, on a hot Sunday afternoon, at the road side, to take part in a community activity, which was important.  That how art could be made use of, to bring at least some qualitative change in a community, for providing a sense of direction and activity to a group of youngsters at the local level. 

May be, that’s how art could set out a ‘trend.’ And escape the fate of being ‘trendy art.’

Sakshi Art Gallery seems to have developed an eye for Kochi, especially for the Durbar Hall Art Centre. ‘Pernoctations & Early Drawings,’ the latest solo show by Surendran Nair, was also taken to Kochi in April. Sakshi had earlier taken their annual show to Kochi last year.

The opening night saw a good gathering of artists from Kerala. C.N.Karunakaran, senior artist and chairman of Kerala Lalithakala Akademi, released ‘Itinerant Mythologies,’ a monologue on Surendran Nair. It was a significant occasion, since such a large body works from Surendran Nair was being exhibited in Kerala for the first time.