Art Explodes in Every Direction: Inward and Outward

Today is Sunday. I began my day with my usual Catholic Sunday service; standing in the middle of a church, filled with faith filled, convinced, and uncomplicated people, praying, singing, sharing, and celebrating. There was energy, there was vibe, there was devotion, and nothing lacked from the usual Sunday services. But from people walking into the church, to the entrance hymn, to the recessional hymn to people walking back home; everything looked and felt like being in an automated mode. Nothing unexpected happened, and nothing unexpected was even expected. Nothing unanticipated was heard, no one was expected to listen to anything that is unanticipated. It was a ritual performed and participated in the most ritualistic manner as possible. It was a kind of implosion into once own faith, certainties, and, age-old practices. Nothing is neither further clarified nor challenged.

Later in the day I was at Chitra Shante (Art Fair) by Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath, which had artworks by over 1500 artists from 22 States, and half a million people were expected to visit it. It was a campus and roads around it filled with a spread of artworks in all styles and mediums.

Some works had nothing or very little to engage the audience; they were there as cute pieces, and merchandise for display, sale, and profit –among them quite many pieces of work were on religious themes and of sacred deities; which perhaps are easily bought by Indian art buyers living on automated mode. But some works had unexpected languages and forms that provoke, challenge, confront, oppose, and even threaten one’s beliefs, practices, and certainties. One is thrown out of one’s automated mode. One is forced to contemplate, interpret, question, and answer –art at its best. Art explodes on to the other; and the other can’t remain mere spectators any more. As I returned home with a watercolour of Dr BR Ambedkar, I hoped that more and more people walk home with artworks that would challenge, confront, oppose, and even disturb their beliefs, practices, certainties, and even their existence.

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