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A true work of art is timeless, at least that is what most of us feel. But
can an artist really defy time? Art is born in human hand. A human being
is nil and nothing beyond the frame of a given time. An opposite view,
however, may hold the artist's case as psychic and not merely biological.
The creation of a biologically limited fellow may indeed generate vibes at
the mental plane and this may continue after the disappearance of the
creator from the scene.
But modern psychological
sciences have proved that the recipient of the vibes generated from the
work of art may possess a mindset that has no relation at all with the
times to which the artist had belonged. The art lovers of twenty first
century have normally no reason to enjoy the subtleties of Nicholas
Poussin's Rape of the Sabine women or the ornateness of Mauryan murals.
What then is the meaning of continuity in art? How do we justify the
so-called passing over of the mantle from one generation to the other? Art
has a core value, a value that is constant and not bound by mortality.
This value aspect defends the logic of continuity. Different societies
under different living conditions react differently to art but ultimately
the reaction matters. A stark human reaction to the dead hands of Jesus on
the lap of his moaning mother in Michealangelo's Pieta is most important
in the discussion of permanence in art.
Aakriti gallery's latest show has evoked the above thoughts because the
show is titled as generation next. If Abanindranath Tagore's Bengal School
gamut was the beginning of the new Indian art, the artists in this show,
then, belong to the fourth generation. They have naturally no obligation
to their forerunners. They are the children of a fresh new century of
cyberised aesthetics, am viewing the show as the dawn of a new day. All
the twenty seven participants are under forty years of age and bubbling
with youthfulness. For the painter, the palette is loud in most cases and
the forms are improvised. For the sculptor, the medium, whether it is
bronze, stone or wood, is like a grand piano where almost any note can be
played uninhibitiously. For the printmaker the impression is a challenge
as always. The artists are mostly from Bengal with some exceptions from
Tripura and Orissa. Each exhibit is an expression of imaginativeness,
curiosity and
intelligence.
The show is a specific
proof of the theory of discontinuity between the past and the present.
Yet, I have found one delicate layer of the past in the general attitude
of the artists towards narrativity. Purely nonrepresentational works, of
course, are there, but the focus is on the story, on verbal
illustrativeness. Art of Bengal is indebted to Abanindranath Tagore for
devising a new language where the narrative was the substance. Aakriti
hopes that these buds will blossom into fragrant flowers. Let all of us
give them a big hand.
--Sankar Majumdar
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