Two men,a bespectacled Indian with a french beard and a foreigner,are frozen in a frame where they stand next to each other in a candid pose against a backdrop dotted by hills and a couple of patches of green,typical of a Mughal miniature. It is Gulammohammed Sheikh with Tom Hancock,an oil and canvas work by artist Bhupen Khakhar from the late 60s that refer to two of his real-life friends named in the title. In those days,we used to refer to each other in our works, recalls Sheikh about his long-time friend. Today,over 50 years later,as one enters Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke,Sheikhs life-size sculpture of Khakhar thick glasses in place,paintbrush in hand and wings attached to his back,as though he had descended from the heavens to paint commands your attention as the centrepiece of a show that commemorates the 10th death anniversary of the artist,where 26 artist reference Khakhar in their works. The kind of popularity Bhupen enjoys among other artists,his generation and the following,is tremendous. He opened up so many new perspectives to art and his work has touched a large group of artists in some way or the other, says Ranjana Mirchandani,director of the gallery. Touched by Bhupen,which runs from November 30 to January 6 at Mirchandani and Gallery Max Mueller,has works by both,his contemporaries and new artists Subodh Gupta,Sheikh,Sudhir Patwardhan,Atul Dodiya and his wife Anju,Shilpa Gupta,Gieve Patel and Varunika Saraf whose lives and art,have been touched by Khakhar. As Mirchandani mentions,Khakhars role in Indias modern art history is manifold. The most significant of all is that he is the first openly gay Indian artist. His controversial images of stark naked men,as seen in the graphic depiction in Bathers or Caves,were direct,but never overtly brazen. Peppered with cheeky observations,as if homosexuality bubbles beneath the surface of day-to-day life,he placed his subjects amid watch repair shops,small Hindu temples or ghats. His stay in England,in the mid-80s,where homosexuality was acceptable,perhaps gave him the confidence to come out of the closet, says Patwardhan,who has employed free application of paint,as characterised by Khakhars works,in his tribute piece for the show: The Pink Room. Khakhars work was revolutionary in a sense that he brought acceptability to kitschy movie posters,street art,mythology and other pop elements in art. He showed that image making could be done,despite not having a modernist aesthetic point of view or any kind of high art,and incorporating these fun,pop elements, explains Patwardhan. Most importantly,it emerged out of our surroundings,in the day-to-day existence in homes,in all its middle-class detailing, says Dodiya. As someone who makes extensive use of pop elements in his works his show in 2003 was a tribute to the artist he sees Khakhars works as deeply personal,witty,playful and refreshingly free of an art-school baggage. I was fascinated by a kind of a naive after-take and yet intelligent subject matter in his works. He almost painted with the relaxedness of a Sunday painter,and always learning from others, he says of his friend and confrere,who died at the age of 68 due to cancer. Much of Khakhars flamboyant,distinctly original style came from the fact that he was a self-trained artisthe was a chartered accountant before he set out to pursue his artistic ambitions by enrolling in a course on art criticism at the MS University of Baroda. Khakhars art helped shape the sensibilities of a later generation,that was seeking a new voice to break away from the elitism of modernist painting. As a student,discovering works of Bhupen Khakar was frankly a relief. It was possible to let the world creep in and at the same time find a relevance for my obsessive interest in miniature paintings, says Saraf. sankhayan.ghosh@expressindia.com
