Rebels With a Cause

THINGS have changed in Vadodara since the riots earlier this year. The sleepy little artist town has been transformed into a hotbed of prote...

THINGS have changed in Vadodara since the riots earlier this year. The sleepy little artist town has been transformed into a hotbed of protest art. 8216;8216;I always held on to a distance in my work because a lot of the experiences I spoke about were not my own. But after the riots, I do not think I can maintain the distance any longer,8217;8217; admits painter Gargi Raina.

It could be true of quite a few of the artists living in the city. Incidents of the recent past have brought them together in never-before ways: May saw 45 of them participating in the 8216;Banyan City8217; exhibition, now more than 100 artists have registered their dissent to the February-March riots by taking part in an exhibition titled 8216;Voices of Violence8217;.

For the artists, it is a small gesture and no one is quite sure whether it will amount to anything. 8216;8216;I do not feel we can do anything beyond wielding the brush and expressing our anger and concern on the canvas. And I don8217;t consider it as some remarkable contribution but it does help create sensitivity towards issues,8217;8217; says printmaker and painter Jyoti Bhatt realistically. Bhatt remembers having participated in several of such shows whether it was to raise funds for flood rehabilitation, Kargil, earthquake or the riots. 8216;8216;We have been part of such shows for several years now, trying to preserve the intellectual stature of this city, but whether that has made an impact is for others to decide, 8217;8217;he adds.

Artist Surendran Nair, whose painting was removed from an exhibition at National Gallery of Modern Art on account of its political content a couple of years ago, is less resigned about the whole thing. 8216;8216;Undoubtedly you cannot solve legal and political problems through art but it is a matter of artistic independence. If you are not allowed to put across your expressions, then why make art? You cannot subvert its democratic voice,8217;8217; he reasons.

But how effective is this democratic voice considering Indian contemporary artists do not have such a strong tradition or vocabulary of protest art to work with?

Rekha Rodwittiya agrees that artists can only intervene subtly. 8216;8216;People often expect artists to show exemplary explicitness in such situations. But we cannot go beyond certain limits. Conducting workshops has the potential possibility of getting the message across more forcefully,8217;8217; says Rodwittiya. 8216;8216;The emphasis however should be on intervention with a conscience and artists anywhere in the world react in the same manner. There is nothing remarkable about it,8217;8217; she adds.

According to art historian Shivaji Panikkar, the Vadodara art fraternity has became more receptive to the political situation since the 1960s. 8216;8216;Even during the national movement, the artists8217; fraternity was always on guard. But art is still confined to the elite, so how can it bring a social revolution,8217;8217; he asks.

Sculptor Swarupa Shah points out to the artists8217; responsibility when dealing with such art. 8216;8216;Protest works have the power to provoke rather than pacify the situation but artists here have been more responsible. The message has been put across in a very subtle yet emphatic way,8217;8217; she says.