Art and Alienation

If you argued that it’s like this in every part of the world, I’d totally disagree. I believe this phenomenon merits more discussion in a place like India, where art making is so vibrant, dynamic and exciting (but its audiences so much less).

Is this linked with notions of art itself? My foremost sense is that galleries are intimidating. Critic Carol Duncan expresses this succinctly when she says how, even in secular spaces like these, there are elaborate rituals, whether or not we are aware of them. The given or suggested tour route, the borders you cannot cross, the necessity for silence, and the uniform way in which we view art create a specific ambience. And nothing seems more unlike the outside world than spotless walls.

The inaccessibility is aggravated by the romantic notion of artists and art making as being on the fringe and cerebral. The repackaging of many artists as Page Three people also sculpts artists as ‘the other’ in the minds of viewers. Inevitably, all this makes for an alienating environment.

My other sense is that, clearly, many seem to be diffident about their own knowledge of art, particularly in the ritualised environs of a gallery. This could have something to do with art education in schools, where art is projected as a beautiful object that can be best appreciated by the learned. Few people would like to think of themselves as stupid and uneducated, but the schism between the learned and the rest of the middle classes seems particularly insurmountable in the stiff space of a white cube.

This self-consciousness certainly changes when outside that specific space. It’s no wonder, then, that so many framed posters, from Picasso to Sher-Gil, are lovingly displayed in thousands of Indian homes, where the inhabitants know with confidence and surety what they like about the work. Compare this with, say, the Salarjung Museum in Hyderabad. On any given day, not only are there many more visitors, but the entire ambience appears to be more interactive. It allows the viewer to try, at least, to imagine how people lived and what they might have thought when they made, sold and bought the artefacts on display.

The sense of both wonder and ease suggests that approached differently, art galleries can attract interested persons. If there is anything at all to learn from this, it is about rethinking the kind of gallery each one wants to be.

If it’s the National Gallery, then there’s no point simply expanding a collection just in numbers and genre. It must make the experience more enjoyable. The rituals will still exist but, at least, they should provoke viewers to shed their inhibitions.

How might this be done? Find out in the next column.