UAE | Heritage and Culture
Art breakers?
Indian artists say that with creativity comes responsibility that should not be taken lightly - as what happened with M.F. Husain's controversial portrait of a bare-chested woman.
- By Vinita Bharadwaj, Staff Reporter
- Published: 00:00 February 28, 2006
Conspicuous by his absence, the grand-old-daddy of contemporary Indian art, M.F. Husain was still talked about at a gathering of artists.
"He couldn't come because of what's happened," one of the helpers was overheard telling a photographer.
What's happened is essentially that the octogenarian artist had yet another brush with controversy over one of his paintings that was up for auction.
The work titled Bharat Mata (Mother India) showed a bare-chested woman whose form represented the outline of India with names of major cities written on her body and this irked a couple of political Hindu outfits, who threatened him.
Husain apologised and the piece has been removed from the auction.
However, to the artists present at the inauguration of 1x1 Art Space in Dubai, the rules are pretty simple.
An artist is free to create sans censorship within his or her personal space, but when it comes to exhibiting public work there are sensitivities that have to be taken into consideration.
"We are in our own world. It's true. We are beyond the influences of politics, religion and other social interferences. When I paint I don't paint worrying what people will think. But when I exhibit I do believe that artists have a duty towards our country and people to show good art," says Jayasri Burman, a Delhi-based artist.
Her husband Paresh Maity, who is also an artist and prefers to work on rural subjects and themes says that the Husain issue should be dismissed as he has apologised.
"If someone apologises it should be forgotten. There are debates over creative licences and there is a fear of self-censorship, but what I say, is that India is a huge country. Every corner has a subject and every region has a tradition and culture. There is enough to work on and draw inspiration and create, so why go down a road that has the potential to hurt people?"
Yusuf Arakkal, who won the Gold Medal at last year's Florence Biennale, agrees and expands on Maity's point.
"There are always going to be controversial subjects that artists paint. What needs to be a deciding factor is whether the cause is worth dying for. I've painted on the Gujarat riots and had to deal with threats and abuses, but I strongly felt that there was a need to show people what I thought was a social wrong," he says.
Colonial hangover
All the artists strongly felt that a lot of the onus fell on the way people were educated about art. Describing Indian perceptions as still suffering from a strong colonial hangover, Jatin Das says that a stronger movement towards sensitising society towards art and what it could represent needs to take place.
"People need to understand the difference between naked, nude and bare-figured. They don't even know and the media freely interchanges these words to create a completely different image than what was originally intended by the artist."
On artistic freedom, Das says that it is a concept that can neither be given nor taken. "It's all relative. There is no such thing as absolute freedom in the world," he says.
Describing the call for Husain's head as vulgar and cheap, Das says that controversy has to be debated, discussed and talked about as opposed to blindly heeding to the calls of politicians.
"It's all the fault of the bloody politicians who use religion to their gain and incite people who haven't even seen the piece in question," he says.
When asked specifically about the Husain controversy, Das says that the best person to comment on that is Husain himself, though he does acknowledge that these are "tricky times".
"Hurting others just shows a lack of grace and I think people at this time should concern themselves with spirituality."
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