K G Subramanyan

Subhalakshmi Shukla in conversation with K.G. Subramanyan.

Extracted from the exhibition catalogue Recent Works by K.G. Subramanyan, with the kind permission of the artist and the Seagull Foundation for the Arts, Kolkata

SUBHALAKSHMI SHUKLA. What is the process of your work? How does material transform or acquire particular meaning through/with it?

K.G....

Subhalakshmi Shukla in conversation with K.G. Subramanyan.

Extracted from the exhibition catalogue Recent Works by K.G. Subramanyan, with the kind permission of the artist and the Seagull Foundation for the Arts, Kolkata

SUBHALAKSHMI SHUKLA. What is the process of your work? How does material transform or acquire particular meaning through/with it?

K.G. SUBRAMANYAN. There is no single process. Which is to say that I do not have a one-point agenda. And in their nature, my works are not end-oriented like those of some confirmed professionals. I am a groper. I find what I see around exciting, but at various levels. Sometimes, the sheer look of each unit. Then its configuration. Then the narratives it generates depending upon what I read into them. Covering a whole range of characteristics—liveliness, elegance, oddness, comedy, tragedy, metamorphic overlay, even allegory. My groping leads me to discover these. And I use various representational alternatives to give them body. I do not swear by a method nor stick to a process, as I do not want to lose this mobility, and with that my desire and power, to discover the world afresh.

I look at it from various viewpoints. And represent it through various media, each and all of which have the ability to unlock new perceptions.

I am not always sure how my work moves forward or what ground it covers. I do not want to be over-specific. I want it to flourish (so-to-say) in a ‘cloud of unknowing’. For a centipede like me to start counting my legs is suicidal. It will freeze me into inaction.

SHUKLA. Why has it been important for artists to look within (one’s own culture) to assert their (political) identity?

SUBRAMANYAN. I am not clear what this question is driving at.

The first part talks about culture (especially one’s own culture). To my mind, culture is, in one sense, what an individual gets from the society or milieu s/he grows within, which shapes to some extent his/her speech, thinking and behaviour, and which eventually gives him/her a ready language of expression. In another sense, it is the material effects (or hardware) of these comprising the living environment, love, institutions, art, literature and the recorded continuities in beliefs and practices. All culture-workers are aware of their dependence on this ready inheritance (whether they say so openly or take it for granted).

Some find this an advantage and build forward from it. Some find it restrictive and burdensome and try to shake themselves free.

But, in the cases of most, there is a love–hate relationship. They want to hold on to that part that sustains them, but at the same time unshackles them and lets them grow forward.

That part of culture which has worked into one’s skin one cannot get rid of; it remains part of the system like one’s complexion or body-rhythm.

But cultural hardware is another matter. One can lay it aside or reject it when it becomes unhelpful or irrelevant.

Often, people don’t.

In this globalized world, people hold on to even these latter to preserve their group identities.

For me, politics pertains to another side of life; it is related to the power structure in organized society and its various ramifications. And the conflicts that come out of it. And the diverse postulates and action-plans for tackling these. In the context of colonialism, where people of one culture tried to lord over the people of another, culture sometimes gains a political dimension. On one side, cultural domination and re-education on the part of the rulers; on the other, cultural resistance and re-inscription on the part of the ruled.

But indiscriminate iconization of cultural forms and practices to sharp-profile the political identities of various groups (Hindu, Islamic, Jewish) is decidedly retrograde and dangerous. This is behind the fundamentalist polarizations of the present-day world and their mutual intolerance.

For me, cultural identity and political identity are not one and the same thing; the former is generally open-ended, the latter is necessarily closed and protective.

SHUKLA. In the present times as well as earlier (about 1970s onwards), artists have been assertive about their ‘identity’ in terms of their choice of materials (like rope, cowdung, Indian vessels, khadi cloth, etc.) suggesting specific identity. Why do you think the relationship between material and identity has been important in shaping the transforming trends in Indian art?

SUBRAMANYAN. I do not agree with any of these views—the fetishistic use of culturally specific materials is confined to very few in the scene you refer to. Nor can one link this use, in every case, with the issue of identity or give it the gravity of transforming the scene.

The use of culturally specific materials, processes, artifacts, manners, etc. can be seen in various parts of the world at various times, and the reasons are many. Some are related to the rediscovery of a forgotten past. Others, to the redeployment of old methods and techniques for new purposes or for the re-utilization of old image—-with new implications. Only a few of these may be related to the issue of identity. I presume this tendency surfaced after collages of diverse visual ingredients and the enaction of fetishized ritual and performance found entry and acceptance in the field of art creation.

All the same, these have their own limitations. Implications get dated and lose relevance, despite all the initial hullabaloo. Although cowdung may have cultural reference in rural India, to consider it a symbol of Indian identity is ludicrous. Similarly khadi may have had one kind of reference in Gandhian India, but not anymore. It is just coarse, home-spun cloth, a canvas-substitute. So I do not find any of these of serious import or consequence.

SHUKLA. What has painting (or art-making) to do with existential experience?

SUBRAMANYAN. What does ‘existential experience’ mean here? Artists’ images of this existence? Or the general human condition? Or life attitudes as stem out of the so-called existentialist thinking, where each individual distrusts the reigning mores in view of the various conflicts and irrationalities inherent in nature and culture and himself assumes the sole responsibility of making choices of action? Where he considers himself an ‘outsider’? Who disregards time-honoured conventions?

Whether art practice will have anything to do with this will depend on each individual artist’s choice. Some may turn the focus on themselves and indulge in various categories of self-exposure; others may do the opposite. I am afraid terms like existential, etc. are used very loosely by art critics (just as they once glibly used ‘impressionism’ and ‘expressionism’ to denote any imaging off the realist track).

SHUKLA. Experiences of alienation are strongly linked to the culture of capitalism and the urban metropolis, and significant art movements have always acknowledged this aspect. Would you like to speak about your own experiences in terms of shifting geographies (urban, non-urban)?

SUBRAMANYAN. I am afraid I sense a kind of loose thinking here too.

One accepts that forces inherent in capitalist/industrialist economies progressively uproot people from their traditional moorings, where those who produced goods or provided services had close cultural links with those they did it for, and these exchanges functioned within a total circuit of implications and meanings. Which educated both. This uprooting I mentioned alienates the producer from the consumer and the product dwindles in reference, becoming a commodity that answers a limited use and is exchanged for money in the marketplace. This affects the total field of human relations. And our world today is controlled by the money-spinners. This can be called ‘alienation’, as it impedes or fragments human contact and minimizes direct human communication.

But this is situational, not geographical. There is today an equal sense of alienation in rural centres as in the urban. Rural youth flock to cities as much to escape the pressures of family or society that is becoming progressively materialistic, and seek companionships in like-minded individuals in a big metropolis; not just to find a job. And this includes a lot of aspiring artists and writers.

And this is not necessarily a recent phenomenon. Urban centres nourished such intermilling and keyed up the levels of creativity and intellectual exchange at various times in history.

So the notion of a rural arcadia as opposed to an urban hell is a little far-fetched. It may be that an over-communalized city like Bombay forces people to long for a rural retreat.

But who knows, the Ambanis may have already set up their buying and selling agents in even those distant places they choose to withdraw to.