The past few decades have seen the evolution of contemporary art in our country. This has proved to be advantageous for our economy and society in many ways. First, the growing interest in contemporary art has helped to divert collectors from the antique market that had resulted in the global plunder of our cultural resources since the colonial period as the interest in contemporary art develops. Thus, we will be able to preserve our ancient artistic heritage much better.Secondly, any development of interest in our living art tradition is bound to increase the production of good art as an increase of interest in antiques never can do. Thirdly, the existence of a large number of openings for creative endeavour is bound to improve the quality of life of the producing society as well.
A tall order? Certainly not. The art boom of the late 70s, 80s and 90s has helped in all these respects. A number of dealers in antiques have shifted to contemporary art. Also, the interest in our contemporary art hasincreased an interest in our folk art, which is perhaps the most important source of its originality.
This will help not only to diversify centres of creative production but will also serve as an important source of income for the increasing number of the rural jobless. The value of this effort can be understood when one understands how the present market for Madhubani art was developed as a famine relief measure, something it has far outgrown today.
This did not happen overnight or without a serious effort on the part of a number of our modern artists, gallery owners and connoisseurs, all of whom in their own way have contributed to the development of the market.
Central to this process is the artist. Whole generations of artists have contributed to this process and perhaps no one has been responsible for this singly as M F Husain. This is perhaps why this doyen of modern Indian art is still the best seller among our contemporary artists even today.
How did he manage this? Primarily on the basis ofhis capacity to produce like a worker and think independently for himself. His unself-conscious approach owes a lot to his being a man of the masses and one deeply imbued in their traditions. This accounts for his success as a popular celebrity.In fact, his antics remind one of the film hero Raj Kapoor and their sharing the Charlie Chaplin image is no accident. This identification with the underdog while being aware of box-office strategy at the same time was peculiarly suitable for an ex-colony evolving a new aesthetics that could be global and yet suit the need for originality of expression necessary for a newly independent people. What Raj Kapoor was to the Indian film, Husain is to our contemporary art.
Both are profoundly global and Indian at the same time. This is what made their works eminently marketable both at home and abroad. And even today, the extent to which Indian art holds its own in the contemporary art market of the world is due in no small measure to the gimmickry and marketing techniqueof Husain.
His role has been exemplary in this respect. He has assiduously worked profoundly Indian themes into a modern idiom, something the colonised mind-set of a Ravi Verma blending past glory with an imitative technique could not have done without his being reborn in a new age, at a different place and from a different class, as Husain was.
Husain has shown the new Indian a space that he or she can appropriate to their economic advantage as well. But for all this, he has been made the target of scurrilous attacks since last year by forces which are ill at ease with the sentiments of our national movement. They want to demolish the global reputation Husain has built for our art by demolishing individual works of his like the preparatory sketch for Saraswati, and recently, his Mahabharat series.
These critics fail to understand the damage they are doing to our contemporary artistic expression by getting the police and courts to intervene in matters that are best left to people themselves. Suchinterference and targeting of the man who has almost single-handedly developed our contemporary art market is no mere competition. It will wreck the emerging art market and should be avoided. Good competitive art is the only alternative. And art lovers and buyers are the best judges of this.
Copyright(c)1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
