Baiju Parthan

Q.What do you feel about the claim that installation art is redundant in India, where every street corner is an ad hoc artwork?
It's definitely true that ritual is present in daily life in India. Participatory spaces already exist here, we do already have those spaces. But installation art is the best medium to express political content. Art that remains on the walls is far removed from the general public. Recently...

Q.What do you feel about the claim that installation art is redundant in India, where every street corner is an ad hoc artwork?
It's definitely true that ritual is present in daily life in India. Participatory spaces already exist here, we do already have those spaces. But installation art is the best medium to express political content. Art that remains on the walls is far removed from the general public. Recently I did an installation art piece with the central image of a prayer wheel, and the statement "Nobody really owns anything in this world. Tie a ribbon to the wheel and turn it if you agree." This piece was displayed in a public space, and after a fortnight's time there were more than three hundred ribbons tied to the wheel. Some people even wrote their names on the ribbon - and these are just passers-by who happened to see the work. An artist would never get that sort of response in a gallery.

Q.Can I ask you what you think of the Saffronart's online gallery?
I think it's a great idea, because Indian art needs visibility. It's never received exposure because of various reasons. Traveling exhibits from India are rare. Sometimes someone will say, "Hey, let's have a show of Indian artists," and throw together some paintings, but there's hardly ever been an informed, curated show. With the Internet, issues of cost are largely removed.

Q.Are there new images or ideas that you are planning to explore in your work?
I never really plan and execute works. What is around me comes into my paintings. I have recently become political in my paintings, perhaps feeling guilty about living a reclusive life. I have been creating works about globalization as a homogenization process, and examining the idea of a 'solvent'. I have one painting with a Buddha on a lotus flower, with a drop of Coca-Cola dropping onto him and dissolving his features. It is not a critique, just an observation of facts. Though I've begun to explore political material in my work, I'm not taking an activist standpoint. The installation project I'm working on at the end of the year will involve sound, touch-screens, etc. We are planning to link words, images, and sounds, breaking the confinement of poetry to the word itself. We are creating poetry cubicles, where poetry will be more of a visual experience. People will be able to touch a word on a screen and have a sound play, and so forth.

Q.What are your thoughts on India's place in the international art scene?
Under all our rapid westernization, there remains a core of mysticism. Ganesha still drinks milk! Recently, there was a miracle that happened, in all the newspapers, that idols of Ganesha would drink milk. Though we speak the corporate lingua franca and drive Rolls Royces, this awareness of life's mysteries remains. I believe that the westerness that affects India, in art, may be washed away once Indian art takes on a global presence. Personally, I will never give up my Indianness, not the colors nor the concerns. My basic metaphysics, my sensibility, my army of metaphors is Indian.

Q.Who have been the chief influences on your work?
Cornell is the first. Leonardo da Vinci is another, his hybrid role as a scientist, artist, poet and writer. (It is anachronistic, but true!) I admire his precision, his coherence and accuracy. Fortunately or unfortunately, all of my figures try to fly. I have always been interested in gravity, and the metaphors in language of gravity. We fall from grace, we fall in love, gravity is consistently there. The plumb line appears in many of my paintings. The third influence is K. C. S. Panicker, a South Indian who I first discovered in my college days. Our space is similar, he makes references to Indian mystical writings, astrology, and ritualism. None of these are conscious influences, but subliminal, deep influences.

Q.Could you describe your work process?
First an image strikes me. I believe that certain images or motifs have an intensity, that is apprehended on three levels. First, physically (which is to say visually), then emotionally, and intellectually. There is an incubation period, when the image gathers elements, and creates its own pictorial space. And then there is the process of transformation, which is the process of painting. I try to actualize my mental vision of a painting, but more important than the details is to capture the picture's intensity. If I succeed at this, I am happy.