Looking into the Mirror

The breakthrough exhibition came in 2004 at the India Habitat Centre,Delhi. The photographs dealt with gender,sex and HIV. The only censorship we had was self-censorship. The curator,Radhika Singh,felt that one photograph with a full body male nude was inappropriate to be exhibited at the space and I agreed since the gallery was located in a place where under-age people passed through. The response was encouraging and in a way it stated,“Hello,we are gay and we are here in Delhi”.

Over the years my work has become more complex in terms of the relationships it depicts and settings it is placed in. However,this March,when Alliance Francaise removed my exhibition,without any notice,after an individual launched a protest,I felt that there had been a breach of trust between an artist and a gallery. There could have been a debate or a public discussion. The collection titled Sun City and Other Stories had earlier travelled to Paris and San Francisco. The intention was not to make a stand. I understand that in a plural society everyone has the right to have an opinion but the response of the gallery to remove the work and have nothing to do with the exhibition was shocking.

Chintan Upadhyay,Artist

Every moment of the artistic process,I am aware of the limitations within which I have to work. I am conscious of whether my work will or will not be accepted by a gallery or allowed to be exhibited in public domain. We are a democracy where people are free,with our representatives running the country,but there are some who are enslaved. There are fundamentalist groups who tend to take over the power of censorship in the name of culture and religion.

In 2005,when I sat nude at Sarjan Art Gallery in Baroda to protest against the Gujarat riots I knew that the act would not go down well with some groups but it was important for me to voice my opinion against those responsible for the attacks. Nudity signified a man’s religious identity since men are often forced to strip by mobsters looking to determine their religious identities. Viewers were invited to apply turmeric and hence become part of the work. Turmeric also signified healing the body,and healing those affected by the riots. Several galleries in Mumbai refused to let me repeat the act in the city.

There are interesting contradictions in society today. So at one level,there is a plea to increase the number of public art projects,and on the other,we want to control and have a say in what is being exhibited. The picture cannot always be beautiful and one needs to be willing to view the mirror. Galleries have repeatedly refused to show my work. I remember long back when several MMSes with sexual connotations were floating around,I made a video by sourcing and putting together some of them. Galleries were extremely sceptical about playing this and finally it was screened in a secluded environment in a Delhi gallery.

We have a tendency to disassociate from controversial subjects,which also affects artistic freedom. In one of the French editions of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses,the cover featured an image of my work. Some people came to know about it but they did not want to write about it because they thought it would erupt into a controversy. There is a constant fear and artists are soft targets who become victims because of the restrictions on their freedom of expression.

(As told to Vandana Kalra)