Cultural Confrontations

By Els Reynders

The fruit of the project will be an exhibition from December 9 1995 - January 1996 in The National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi and in the Stedelijk Museum Bureau, Amsterdam (April-May 1996). Afterwards the exhibition will travel to several other venues in Europe.
Rob Birza, Bastiënne Kramer, and Berend Strik from The Netherlands will work together with Bhupen Khakhar, Mrinalini Mukherjee, and Sudarshan Shetty from India, all renowned artists in their respective art circuits.
The intention is to intensify the discussion and mutual exchange process that started a few years ago between Dutch and Indian artists on the initiative of the Foundation for Indian Artists. In this project the artists can feel, identify, and reflect on the local as well as the global cultural aspect in art practice and theory. They are able to visit each other's coun- tries and exhibit their work abroad.

Hybrid vocabularies
Art is less than ever before tied to time and place. There is no longer an ironclad link between representation and conventional vocabularies. Hybrid and ambiguous vocabularies are being introduced. Cultures are torn apart and identities lost. Artists look towards the world beyond in the hope that interaction with other cultures may spawn fresh vitality.
Against this background a project such as this, in which Indian and Dutch artists work together over a period of time, becomes an exiting venture.

Dutch Artists
The point of departure for the Dutch artists is a fascination with Indian culture that surpas- ses mere interest. They are looking for a serious confrontation and wish to counterbalance the superficial MTV-culture that splices disparate elements in an eclectic manner to evoke cliché imagery. They seek a confrontation with contrast, boundaries, frames of references, and partitions within the fluid cultural space in which they live. This deliberate quest for alienation in order to recreate oneself and one's work afresh is a risky enterprise but at the same time can signal fresh commitment.
What interests Rob Birza is India's elusiveness, the multi-layered nature that one encounters on all levels of Indian culture. Nothing is what it seems, the meaning of things is forever shifting.
Bastiënne Kramer clearly senses the presence of India's tradition, its past and its religion in Indian art, sometimes in ways that are difficult for her to imagine. Berend Strik feels that he should stay close to himself in order to transcend the cultural differences that strike him. In this respect the idea of working in India is both appealing and disturbing to them.
One way for the artists to draw closer to Indian culture is to use typical Indian techniques and materials and incorporate them into their own work.
Kramer goes a step further in this regard, because she is interested in techniques which ended up in India under influence from the West and are applied there in a characteristic manner. In this connection she in thinking of making use of plastic blowing and metal casting.
All three artists are interested in the figurative aspect, which is an important factor in Indian art. In Kramer's work figuration is employed to a special end, for example through references to reality with an aim toward confrontation. Often this figuration is attended by much more abstract aspects of her work. In general she makes use of objects taken from daily life.
Rob Birza is particularly interested in old techniques in part because these technique are used in making images of the gods. The examples that spring to mind are made of straw and cow dung. The role which figuration plays in this, interests him because it seems a natural blend of abstract and figurative images. They are nearly cartoon-like figures. The use of colour also plays a role. To him colour is so intensely present in India that he feels it may well generate fresh sensibilities.
Berend Strik too wants to use Indian techniques - namely the specifically Indian embroidery techniques. Strik embroiders over existing images in this project derived from the Indian vocabulary. The literal image is not important.

Indian artists
The confrontation with the Indian artists will be interesting. One of the artists, Mrinalini Mukherjee, usually works with sisal and hemp to make organic forms on a human scale. She uses her material in a craft-like manner, very direct and without any preliminary drawings.
She refers to the magical Nagas and Bhutas, traditional sculptural images, to reflect her interest in the unison of the permanent and the transitory.
Mukherjee is also interested in materials other than vegetable fibres, for instance clay, and she is looking forward to working in ceramics for the project.
Bhupen Khakhar is a painter, but he also worked in clay during a project last year at the European Ceramics Work Centre in the Netherlands. He is elaborating this technique in India. He can transform his brilliant sense of colour in a technique called Majolica glazing. Khakhar's subject are drawn from daily life, which he blends with stories of the gods and old myths. His work contains a highly personal commentary of the society in which he lives. He expresses himself not only in the visual arts but he is also a writer.
During his study as a painter, Sudarshan Shetty became more interested in sculpture and installations. Now he combines all three techniques in a serious but often playful way. His paintings are often elaborated with sculpture and his sculptures have picturesque qualities.
He created a fairy-like environment with sculptures, paintings and installations in a café in a big hotel in New Delhi.
Mukherjee, Khakhar, and Shetty have been to Europe before and are familiar with Western topics in art. They are not very restricted to the materials they use and are willing to experiment, as their Dutch colleagues are. Through the confrontation between different cultures and the solutions of their artistic problems, inquisitiveness on both sides can be stimulated. The exhibitions in New Delhi and Amsterdam and various places in Europe will be the testimony to their working together.

For furher information
Els Reynders, Project Manager
Foundation for Indian Artists
Tel: +31-20-6231547

The National Gallery of Modern Art
Jaipur House
India Gate
New Delhi
India
Tel: +91-11-382835

The Stedelijk Museum Bureau
Rozenstraat 59
1016 NN Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Tel: +31-20-4220471