ck lal on the kathmandu art scene. and more.
This is the best article/ review that I have read in a long time. Topi doffed.
The normal defense of artists, and especially photographers making their moves in the Art Word, that Art/Photography change nothing is not a defense that I agree with . Not at all.
The Brazillian Photography star of the KIAF made the same statement during her talk. I beg to disagree with the grand old lady and with all the others who make the same point. All they have to do is look at the visual landscape that surrounds them. The advertising images that there is no escape from. These in, your face up your mind, images make a lot of difference contemporary, consumer driven societies. Much more difference than is good for us.
But then "Order" in societies is what has been ordered by those who would control us.
I love the quote from Sri Aurobindo.
“The bourgeois is the man of good sense and enlightenment, the man of moderation, the man of peace and orderliness, the man in every way ‘respectable’, who is the mainstay of all well-ordered societies. …A little art, a little poetry, a little religion, a little scholarship, a little philosophy, all these are excellent ingredients in life, and give an air of decorous refinement to his surroundings.Such a type may give stability to a society; it cannot reform or revolutionize it. Such a type may make the politics of a nation safe, decorous and reputable. It cannot make that nation great or free.”
A cursory look at the calendar of events in Kathmandu would suggest that the art scene of the capital city is fecund and vibrant. A closer look, however, would perhaps reveal to the discerning that most of such activities are often ritualistic in nature. Conformist aesthetics that feeds the vanity of the bourgeoisie rather than stoke passions and incite action dominate the picture. A culture of compliance, which explores the human desire to follow and obey authority, is often the defining feature of the contemporary arts and literature scene. The moment someone aims to throw a little paint at the status quo—as the bold artist Manish Harijan attempted sometime ago—he or she is banished into obscurity by the arbitrators of cultural tastes.
If activities, rather than activism, were the criteria, Kathmandu has been sizzling for over a month or so. Jazzmandu and Jazz Bazaar drew enthusiasts from faraway places. Sarah Kay held slam poetry workshops in profit-sector schools. Several generations of Nepali poets converged at Nepal Academy Hall to sing of nation and nationalism.
Art activism in auditoriums, galleries, salons and palace courtyards—artivism is the term Asmina Ranjit adores—however, is a poor substitute for activism of the deeds out in the streets or at the grassroots.
Raghuvir Sahay (1929-1990), a leftwing journalist-litterateur of Hindi was in fact so pessimistic that he declared quite unambiguously, “… Where there will be too much art. / The change will not happen.” Arts and literature, it would appear, teaches its ‘audience’ to endure suffering as inevitable conditions of human existence rather than fight petty tyrannies in life and everyday injustices of the world.
In a poem of elegiac metre, appropriately titled “In Memory of W.B. Yeats,” Anglo-American poet W. H. Auden (1907-1973) laments as much the life of his own works as about the legacy of his idol, “You were silly like us; your gift survived it all…/ For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives/ … A way of happening, a mouth.”
“The bourgeois is the man of good sense and enlightenment, the man of moderation, the man of peace and orderliness, the man in every way ‘respectable’, who is the mainstay of all well-ordered societies. …A little art, a little poetry, a little religion, a little scholarship, a little philosophy, all these are excellent ingredients in life, and give an air of decorous refinement to his surroundings,” observes Aurobindo, the Sage of Pondichery, adding in no uncertain terms, “Such a type may give stability to a society; it cannot reform or revolutionize it. Such a type may make the politics of a nation safe, decorous and reputable. It cannot make that nation great or free.”
No creation is complete without the engagement of a dispassionate critic. In the quadrangle of art, thought, action and reflection—works of a creator, a critic, a campaigner and a thinker respectively—perhaps the role of the reviewer is what connects imagination with reality. It is the responsibility of the critic to go beyond the concerns of the creator and find its relevance for the contemporary society. Without the interpretations of an interventionist, artistes become dreamily detached and activists develop disdain for their work. Thinkers then become mentally malnourished.
A proposition, however, is possible to forward: Art beyond the absorptive capacity of society is excessive and does more harm than good. Like every good answer, it only succeeds in posing yet another question: How to expand absorptive capacity in a hubristic society? Now, that is a question worth engaging budding critics in every field of arts and literature.
http://theweek.myrepublica.com/details.php?news_id=46086
The normal defense of artists, and especially photographers making their moves in the Art Word, that Art/Photography change nothing is not a defense that I agree with . Not at all.
The Brazillian Photography star of the KIAF made the same statement during her talk. I beg to disagree with the grand old lady and with all the others who make the same point. All they have to do is look at the visual landscape that surrounds them. The advertising images that there is no escape from. These in, your face up your mind, images make a lot of difference contemporary, consumer driven societies. Much more difference than is good for us.
But then "Order" in societies is what has been ordered by those who would control us.
I love the quote from Sri Aurobindo.
“The bourgeois is the man of good sense and enlightenment, the man of moderation, the man of peace and orderliness, the man in every way ‘respectable’, who is the mainstay of all well-ordered societies. …A little art, a little poetry, a little religion, a little scholarship, a little philosophy, all these are excellent ingredients in life, and give an air of decorous refinement to his surroundings.Such a type may give stability to a society; it cannot reform or revolutionize it. Such a type may make the politics of a nation safe, decorous and reputable. It cannot make that nation great or free.”
A cursory look at the calendar of events in Kathmandu would suggest that the art scene of the capital city is fecund and vibrant. A closer look, however, would perhaps reveal to the discerning that most of such activities are often ritualistic in nature. Conformist aesthetics that feeds the vanity of the bourgeoisie rather than stoke passions and incite action dominate the picture. A culture of compliance, which explores the human desire to follow and obey authority, is often the defining feature of the contemporary arts and literature scene. The moment someone aims to throw a little paint at the status quo—as the bold artist Manish Harijan attempted sometime ago—he or she is banished into obscurity by the arbitrators of cultural tastes.
If activities, rather than activism, were the criteria, Kathmandu has been sizzling for over a month or so. Jazzmandu and Jazz Bazaar drew enthusiasts from faraway places. Sarah Kay held slam poetry workshops in profit-sector schools. Several generations of Nepali poets converged at Nepal Academy Hall to sing of nation and nationalism.
Art activism in auditoriums, galleries, salons and palace courtyards—artivism is the term Asmina Ranjit adores—however, is a poor substitute for activism of the deeds out in the streets or at the grassroots.
Raghuvir Sahay (1929-1990), a leftwing journalist-litterateur of Hindi was in fact so pessimistic that he declared quite unambiguously, “… Where there will be too much art. / The change will not happen.” Arts and literature, it would appear, teaches its ‘audience’ to endure suffering as inevitable conditions of human existence rather than fight petty tyrannies in life and everyday injustices of the world.
In a poem of elegiac metre, appropriately titled “In Memory of W.B. Yeats,” Anglo-American poet W. H. Auden (1907-1973) laments as much the life of his own works as about the legacy of his idol, “You were silly like us; your gift survived it all…/ For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives/ … A way of happening, a mouth.”
“The bourgeois is the man of good sense and enlightenment, the man of moderation, the man of peace and orderliness, the man in every way ‘respectable’, who is the mainstay of all well-ordered societies. …A little art, a little poetry, a little religion, a little scholarship, a little philosophy, all these are excellent ingredients in life, and give an air of decorous refinement to his surroundings,” observes Aurobindo, the Sage of Pondichery, adding in no uncertain terms, “Such a type may give stability to a society; it cannot reform or revolutionize it. Such a type may make the politics of a nation safe, decorous and reputable. It cannot make that nation great or free.”
No creation is complete without the engagement of a dispassionate critic. In the quadrangle of art, thought, action and reflection—works of a creator, a critic, a campaigner and a thinker respectively—perhaps the role of the reviewer is what connects imagination with reality. It is the responsibility of the critic to go beyond the concerns of the creator and find its relevance for the contemporary society. Without the interpretations of an interventionist, artistes become dreamily detached and activists develop disdain for their work. Thinkers then become mentally malnourished.
A proposition, however, is possible to forward: Art beyond the absorptive capacity of society is excessive and does more harm than good. Like every good answer, it only succeeds in posing yet another question: How to expand absorptive capacity in a hubristic society? Now, that is a question worth engaging budding critics in every field of arts and literature.
http://theweek.myrepublica.com/details.php?news_id=46086
posted by Satish Sharma at
11:21
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