Beastly Lives, Satirical Tales

Contemporary sculpture has been the poorer cousin of Indian art. Now, a clutch of sculptors is giving it a sharp new language, says MANJULA NARAYAN

WANDER DOWN the corridors of art galleries and it will soon become obvious that sculpture is no longer a neglected stepsister of the Indian art scene. Corporate houses, institutions and individuals are now collecting brooding bronzes, chiselled stonework, painted fiberglass and shimmering stainless steel sculptures. These developments and the emergence of installation art, which has broken the barriers between painting and sculpture, are exhilarating. But the work of Indian sculptors, unlike that of contemporary painters, seems to lack the energy that comes from exploring the socio-political realities of what it means to be Indian today.

At least, that’s what you believed until you came across the work of Vadodara-based artist Ved Gupta (32) at Gallery Threshold in New Delhi. The place that hosted Arrested Moment, a show of his latest sculptures and paintings, teemed with crowds of leering dwarf men. Some of the fiberglass figures have a shiny toy-like appeal and, as you go ahead and touch them on gallery owner Tunty Chauhan’s urging, you realise with a start that they are inspired by the inflatable ‘hit me’ figures that toddlers love. But there’s nothing childlike about Gupta’s wobbly men, who roll about with their hands behind their backs and exude an oily air of self-satisfaction. Elsewhere, a portly figure dressed in the politician’s trademark kurta pajama sticks his forked tongue out at an emaciated one whose tongue correspondingly hangs down to his knees, and a yaksha in a three-piece suit hangs about with an obnoxious red frog on his shoulder…

THE PIECES strike an immediate chord and, as you examine the contrasting figures of an overfed corporate type stroking the hand of the half-naked employee sharing his treacherous love seat, you realise that Ved Gupta’s work makes references to every current economic issue from Singur and SEZs to industrial unrest, farmer suicides and the effects of untrammeled capitalism.

“Gupta’s work demonstrates an excellent sense of craft and aesthetics, but more relevant is the satirical expression. To dwarf the ‘big wigs’ (political, religious, business tycoons), or mask them with clown-like faces appeals to the masses in the same manner that the common people enjoyed the court jesters making fun of the king,” says Dorrie Younger whose Kashi Art Gallery in Kochi hosted the artist when he won the Kashi Award for Visual Arts in 2007.

The other recipient of the award last year was Shiv Verma (32), a sculptor currently based in Vadodara, who blends the metal work traditions of his native Bastar with contemporary media like stainless steel and tackles subjects like industrialisation, genetic modification, technological advancement and its effect on rural societies.

It is clear that the emerging crop of sculptors is commenting on social, caste and sexual inequalities in new ways. Older sculptors like NN Rimzon dealt with similar issues in large-scale works and, while both he and others like Valsan Koorma Kolleri continue to be experimental in their approach to mediums and concepts, the methods they use are different — as different, perhaps, as their own work is from that of the earlier generation of sculptors like KG Radhakrishnan.

Still, a few Indian sculptors refuse to settle into generational grooves. Though K Reghunadhan (50), who lives in Kochi, is a contemporary of Rimzon and belongs to the generation of sculptors who studied at MS University in Vadodara in the mid-1980s, his work, in its use of the grotesque, seems to have more in common with that of Ved Gupta.

“In the end, most artists are also interested in making their work look appealing. Reghunadhan’s work is exceptional because he brings out the disgusting aspects that most artists don’t address — like the expulsion of vomit due to excessive alcohol consumption,” says Younger, who adds that the artist’s strength lies in his ability to “pull from his rural environment and create visual stories”.

“Being a Malayali, I know the mindset of my home state: everyone here reads great literature and is exposed to international cinema but still thinks of art as being at the calendar level. I look at it as satire,” says Reghunadhan, who traces the birth of his political consciousness to his involvement as a student in Vadodara with the short-lived Indian Radical Painters and Sculptors Association that strove to place Social Realism at the centre of the art and life of its members.

“Being political is a stand. Early student politics put the fire in my work. That dialectic is still there but my work is not directly political,” says Reghunadhan, whose recent works feature figures that, at first sight, seem to be heroic almost in the orthodox Socialist Realist mould. But, on closer examination of Anecdote, his latest series, you notice that the striding woman comes equipped with a penis, that her face is blue and that a pot of curd has been overturned on her head. “Of course, you can look at my work as political and people do… but it can also have different interpretations. A sculpture can withstand the test of time only if it does that,” he says.

For Hyderabad-based Shanthi Swaroopini (42), the personal is the political. “The inspiration and the stimulation is personal, but not in a direct way. When I work, I do draw on personal experience but it opens onto the larger space,” she says, adding that if her work appears feminist, it is just because she happens to be a woman and “am in a frame within which I face certain experiences”. Those experiences may or may not be universal, but one look at her exquisite female squatting bronzes with insects crawling over them is enough to make your hair stand on end. Then, there is the reptilian female form that hangs painting-like on the wall, the ridges down her back shining under the gallery lights, making you think of self doubt and loathing and of the insider-outsider, the individual who witnesses but is perhaps powerless to effect change.

“My work is open to interpretation. It requires strength to open up and often I feel like showing things but at the same time I don’t like to,” says Swaroopini, who started out as a painter and now believes sculpture gives her a “blanketed space, a niche” within which she is able to examine what is “safe to expose and what to feel protective about”.

“While Swaroopini and Gupta belong to different generations, both of them do issue-based work,” says Tunty Chauhan, who believes the folksy attractiveness of Gupta’s sculpture adds to the excoriating nature of his social comment. To the viewer, his work seems like what 18th century English satirical artist William Hogarth would have done if he had grown up in Bihar — and had chosen to sculpt.

“Even as a student, I enjoyed doing caricatures, but I never intended to do political art. Now, I believe political art is necessary. Most Indian artists deal with issues indirectly. I deal with them directly,” says Gupta, who admires the work of GR Iranna, whose shocking Make Sure You’re Breathing recalls Abu Ghraib, and painter Sudhir Patwardhan’s depictions of social violence. “I wanted that same quality in my art. Instead of high art, which is not easy for the common man to understand, I wanted to do something that’s direct,” he says.

BENGALOORU-BASED veteran sculptor Balan Nambiar (71), who has created iconic works like Valampiri Shanka and Kannati Bimbam, which use the purest stainless steel to explore philosophical concepts, places the re-emergence of issue-based art within the context of the ancient art-for-art’s-sake versus art-for-society’s- sake argument.

“Some works allow an artist to comment, like a cartoonist would, on a particular situation while other works are more meditative. It is possible to comment on society and also do high philosophical art. While I don’t believe in going back to Socialist Realism, I do believe that an artist has the right to comment,” he says.

That comment is being heard even in a difficult economic climate. “While the price of paintings has shot up, most sculpture is priced between Rs 3 and 7 lakhs. A Subodh Gupta is really a oneoff. Even the really experienced sculptors only sell within this bracket. That’s why their work is such a great investment now,” says Chauhan, who believes the “rocky market” makes this the perfect time for bargains.

You might never know if that great piece you picked up will be worth more in a few years’ time. But choose work that makes an honest comment like the sculptures of Swaroopini, Reghunadhan, Gupta and Verma and you’ll have a worthy addition to your collection that will, in time, hopefully appreciate in value too.