Of Meese and men

The artist is a bundle of raw energy, his angst-ridden, in-your-face and confrontational, maiden Indian performance in Mumbai at the National Centre for Performing Arts did not go down smoothly though, and has created a debate among the art cognoscenti.

While Meese’s sculpture Don’t call us, we’ll call you, did not get past the Indian customs office because the authorities deemed the nudes, (a man keeling down with an officer behind him with gun in hand) obscene, his canvases, at Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke were better received and the 9 X 6 foot General Sweetie was sold to an Indian collector. Clearly, the thick squiggles of paint, squeezed straight from the tube and the chaos of colours and collage are considered less ‘offensive’ than his bronze and white-nickel sculptures of molten body parts that celebrate the grotesque in art.

The remnants of his performance, that include a display of masks, toys and props, is a reminder of the evening that set some of Mumbai’s art-viewing junta agog. When spectators were offered a glimpse of his pubic hair and were assailed by incoherent screaming and ranting, it was more than many could take.

Abhay Sardesai, the editor of Art India, came away with mixed emotions. “Meese brought a manic nervous energy to his performance that presented, among other things, the tragic-comic disintegration of a man devoted to hyper-nationalist ideals,” Sardesai observes. “However, the movements, pacing, monologue and role-play was a throwback to Absurdists like (Samuel) Beckett—tracts that have provided good fodder to undergraduate college drama groups. It would’ve been more relevant and challenging if he had created his drama of perverse worship around any of our present-day small or big-time villains, instead of Hitler, who is probably the most heavily caricatured ‘bad man’ over the last 60 years,” he adds.

Photo-artist Kabi has a critique along similar lines: “Though I liked his movements and stage presence, I feel the subject matter (the regimes that prevailed in Germany during the first half of the 20th century) is old coming out of a contemporary artist.”

Artist Nalini Malani felt a show of this nature is an important landmark in a country where state censorship is clamping down on artistic expression. “I liked Meese’s performance because it is iconoclastic, talks about a relevant issue like Fascism and the dictatorship of art and beauty. This is important in an ethos where art is just another product, though I feel the ghost of Jamshed Bhabha (founder of NCPA) would be reeling under such a performance,” she jokes.