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Journalism of Courage
I WAS so overwhelmed by the art prices a few weeks back, I began to think of the hero of the price mart: The art collector. Around the same time, I travelled by train to a north Indian town, which made me think about what makes a person a collector, i.e., an art collector, with a collection to show or own.
Other impulses too propelled me to think. One of them was this compulsive pop-up in the itinerary: Shopping for exquisite crafts. In a small 500,000 population town, visitor after visitor appeared to have traversed the older part of the city, optimistically seeking a jewel in the grime. What drove them to pick up something, almost as if this smoothed off or completed the visit? My conclusion was that this was just one indication that most of us are collectors, restrained partially by our pockets.
There are two important ideas here. Firstly, people pick up artifacts, artwork or crafted objects not only because many may not actually be able to afford the stuff galleries offer, but also because many of them find their visual appetites somewhat satiated in these spaces.
Secondly, it is not what you buy as much as how you treat it. If you are an Ansel Adams fan and have lined your home with large posters of his scenic black and whites, acquired over a decade during visits abroad, are you less of a collector just because you8217;ve obviously spent less than someone who just bought that Tyeb Mehta?
A person who does spend his time and money buying precious pieces for a collection is probably already hopping mad at this re-classification of collectors. What if they suggested that these 8216;others8217; are not collectors because they have not outlined a plan, nor have they educated themselves about what they are acquiring?
I8217;d say we should look at it a bit differently. Let8217;s envision the exercise of collecting as a playing out of our aesthetic selves. That8217;s where the objects bought and arranged serve as props to construct the world in our aesthetic mould. Of course, each of these objects are imbued with a historic context, even with baggage, which also informs the world we build up.
So each person, even one who 8216;decorates8217; his/her home with elaborate artificial flowers of global origins is proposing a point of view. These flowers are their collection, just like watercolours from the contemporary Bengal School are another8217;s. One collector might just be better informed than another and may have set himself/herself a more complex task requiring certain kinds of knowledge. But I8217;m sceptical about divides between collectors and non-collectors. The complexity shows in everyday life too. The National Gallery of Modern Art in Delhi is known to have dumped artists8217; works in dusty heaps, while just 10 minutes away, a ragpicker has lined a bin with its own discards of shimmering CDs in the manner of glowing tiles. Which is artier than thou? Can you spot the collector here? Don8217;t answer that, don8217;t even try. Just realise that these questions themselves stand on feet of clay as the understanding of art democratises, even while the market consolidates.
