Jaded vision

A SELF proclaimed nihilistic institution, the faculty of fine arts at M S University of Baroda, could be taking its nihilism too far. A stat...

A SELF proclaimed nihilistic institution, the faculty of fine arts at M S University of Baroda, could be taking its nihilism too far. A static infrastructure for the last decade, a limiting Gujarat focused intake of students, and a string of faculty squabbles that affected teaching in stretches, have meant that the avant garde institute is in immediate need of fresh air and some technology to sustain creativity.

From its best days in the mid-1980s when it had on board teachers like Sankho Chaudhury, K.G. Subramanyan, Bhupen Khakhar, Nagji Patel and Ghulam Sheikh, the faculty now, its alumni say, needs a total revamp.

Says Bangalore based Suryaprakash, managing director of Nimlok, a display and exhibition solutions firm: 8216;8216;Over the last few years lack of dedication in a section of faculty has hampered growth. Baroda is not producing even two good artists a year. A reorientation of attitude is in order and internal squabbles should stop immediately.8217;8217;

HIS vocal criticism is countered by the faculty who claim that it8217;s not the quality of teaching but a decline in student talent that is the root cause of the department8217;s decline. 8216;8216;It could be because 70 per cent have been coming from Gujarat board, limiting outside intake to 20 to 25 students. Students come and say they would give their assignment computer typed as their writing is not good. Can one expect this from an artist,8217;8217; says a teacher of graphic design.

Faculty Dean, Deepak Kannal, is even more defensive. 8216;8216;Every year the Harmony awards are studded with Baroda students. The Lalit Kala Academy annual award list is never complete without a Baroda product. The youngest of the crop have already made national name for themselves. It8217;s surely not a sign of decline,8217;8217; Kannal says.

But the argument does not cut much ice with those who left the campus long ago. Rajiv Lochan, Director of National Gallery of Modern Arts NGMA, New Delhi, believes something has gone missing in the environment that characterised Baroda. 8216;8216;Those times produced stalwarts, but I would not compare. Great interactivity and freedom of expression have been the pedagogical pillars of the place. I think an element of regionalism has afflicted the faculty for sometime and that might have affected creative pollination. The university should answer this question,8217;8217; he says.

Kannal does not agree. 8216;8216;We may dispute the ratio of regionalism, but the idea is not bad. The place that nurtures an institute of this kind can have its stamp. And so far as freedom is concerned, it remains our strong point. We only teach the language, leaving its expression for students to explore.8217;8217;

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For the record, the faculty counts six Padmashrees, one OBE and a stream of innumerable annual awards. Last year8217;s Triennale at Delhi had only two awards coming to Indian artists. Both Shibu Natesan Painting and Janak Jhankar Sculptor are Baroda products.

ON campus, students are too busy with their May 11 annual graduate show to bother about what direction the faculty takes in the next few years. 8216;8216;The sculpture department has been without a full-time head for sometime, and yet ours is the best display every year. What else can one want,8217;8217; says a post-graduate student. Last year, more than half the exhibits of graduate show were sold even before the display formally opened.

Ghulam Sheikh in his introduction to The Contemporary Art In Baroda once wrote: 8216;8216;The Baroda school has been variously described as modernist, cubist, abstractionist, indigenist, narrativist, socialist, depending on prevalent tendencies visible in the work of some or other artists, notwithstanding the simultaneous and diverse expression of other contemporaries.8217;8217; The amorphousness still lingers. As an art critic put it. 8216;8216;The faculty is still riding the crest. The ebb is there round the corner. It needs a jolt. Nicer if it comes from within.8217;8217;

Former professor Ratan Parimoo, says it would be good if the neglect is not permanent. 8216;8216;The faculty needs more permanent staff then temporary lecturers. Sculpture does not have a professor. Whole point is it should not turn into a permanent neglect. We started on a clean slate in 1950, lacked British realism, or traditional Shanti Niketan style. There were no hangovers. If anything, the decline is only a reflection of paucity of geniuses at the national level. But we have the resilience to survive bad patches,8217;8217; he says.