‘Reading
Richard Powers is a celebration of geekiness’
Ashok Banker
Atul Dodiya
on
ART
I was recently showing
in New York, when I came across works by an American artist named Richard
Serra. He works in extremely heavy iron and is known for his huge metal
sheet works, some of which are ten feet high and thirty to forty feet
long. Looking at them, one can’t help but wonder at just how his
work has been transported and installed, let alone the enormous effort
it would have taken to produce. When you see his work, you feel an immense
burden on your chest, and Serra himself has talked about weight, its
psychological effect. I saw a wonderful piece of his called Snake at
the Guggenheim. But at the Gagosian Gallery in New York I saw his solo
show, which is a rare thing. It was called Rolled and Forged. Though
the gallery was large enough, his works filled entire rooms because
they were so huge. These were solid from within, not welded together,
solid steel. The metal was not treated, so it had an orange-brown rust
colour. Some places remained black-gray. As a painter, I was really
moved by it.
Dodiya
is a Mumbai-based artist
Dona Ganguly on
DANCE
A significant event
in the world of dance last week was the inauguration of a permanent
stage named after the legendary Odissi maestro, Guru Kelucharan Mahapatra.
The inauguration was part of the three-day Kumar Utsav, held from October
6-8 in Cuttack, Orissa, bringing together performing artistes from across
the country. This being the Utsav’s silver jubilee, it was a wonderful
idea to commemorate it by paying tribute to the legendary figure who
was also a great cultural ambassador of the state, the man who made
Odissi popular and took it all over the world.
Ganguly
is a dancer, based in Kolkata
Jagdish
Raja on
THEATRE
Something I am looking
forward to very eagerly is Yayati by Girish Karnad. It will be
part of an upcoming festival — the Karnataka Rangabhoomi —
which will be held between October 24 and 29. I am, of course, looking
forward to all the plays in the festival; among them are six great works
by eminent Kannada playwrights — apart from Girish Karnad, these
include Chandrasekhar Kambar, P. Lankesh, T. Seetharam, Kuvempu and
Sriranga. But Yayati is the first play Girish Karnad ever wrote, since
which time he has grown immensely.
Yayati is a very
intriguing play. Drawing on Indian mythology, it has woven together
a grouping of very strong characters — four women, a king and
his son. All of them are obsessed with getting what they want. How far
would one go to reach one’s goal? How crooked can one get to achieve
what one craves? Yayati brings out the motives and forces behind human
desire very well — a theme highly relevant to the modern day.
Another play I am looking forward to is Kuvempu’s take on Kurukshetra,
the Mahabharata battlefield, seen in the aftermath of the war.
Raja
is a Bangalore-based theatre person and TV producer
Ashok Banker
on
BOOKS
Reading Richard
Powers is a celebration of geekiness. This post-modern genius is able
to cram more ideas, history, science and art into a single novel than
most novelists can pack into an entire career. Powers’ new novel
The Echo Maker is my most eagerly awaited book. In his last novel, The
Time of Our Singing, Powers tested his remarkable talent to the limit,
impersonating the voice and culture of a mixed-race narrator growing
up in mid-20th century America. It’s a novel about classical music,
race, quantum physics, family, brotherhood, violence, prejudice, and
it’s invested with such emotional depth and masterful storytelling
that you can only exhale slowly at its sheer beauty. Yet Powers himself
is a white man, which makes his chutzpah all the more admirable. At
a time when book critics seem to want everyone to squeeze into neat
cubbyholes —literary novelist, genre author, bestseller, hack
— or unite in a sweaty ‘global’ embrace, it’s
great to see a writer with the balls to switch mindframes, skin colour,
and even cultural histories, so boldly, confidently, suavely, and carry
it off like a breeze. Powers asserts the right of the artist to go beyond
black, white, and grey, and paint his characters any hue he pleases.
More power to his pen.
Banker has just released the last volume in his translation of the Mahabharata
