Thursday, December 20, 2018

Interior Monologue of an Exquisite Painter

(Artist Shashikant Dhotre)

Exquisitely painted images and charming beauties from some dreamy lands, dimly lit surroundings contrasted by the starkly lit models and their silk saris cascading and rippling, and the absolute mystery enveloping the maker of all these images together imparts an absolutely captivating aura to the paintings of Shashikant Dhotre. In the social media his works, at times with acknowledgement and mostly without any mention of the artist’s name, are a sensation often eking out comments of excitement and wonder; the common man out there in the social media expresses his fascination for Dhotre’s paintings mainly by underlining that fact they are ‘painted’ images. A painted image, at least in the eyes of a common man is attractive and awe inspiring only when it surpasses the perfection of an image captured in a photograph. This immediate comparison comes from the fact that a photographic image is an image that concurs with the image caught in the human eyes. Here human eyes become the ultimate judge of perfection and similitude though they overlook the manipulations mechanically possible in the case of a photographic image. 

From the very beginning of modern art an image produced by a camera has been the ultimate referential point of paintings. How far an image created by an artist on a two dimensional surface was similar to a possible photographic image captured in the given time, space and light had become a touchstone for determining the success of a painted image. This in turn had given birth to another system of knowledge regarding modern art where the ‘modernity’ was determined by observing how different an experimental image was from a possible photographic image which had been its referential point. Much before photography was invented, artists had experimented with various forms of crude lenses in order to get the very similar image that the eyes had perceived. Renaissance was the highpoint of it as far as western art was concerned and once they achieved what they had desired, they started going beyond the perceived realities in order to capture the eternal and divine in the perfect naturalistic style. This metaphysical interiority of naturalistic paintings did not stay simply within the images but it sought its manifestations in various symbolic representations that included the objects included within the painting and the ways in which the draperies were depicted. Renaissance paintings presented their spiritual content through the opulence of representation as against the sparseness and crudity of the pre-Renaissance works that preceded them. 

Seen against this historical perspective that illuminates our understanding of the contemporary works of art, Shashikant Dhotre’s works, despite their popularity amongst millions of faceless netizens and their fascination and awe for the apparent, reveal a different kind of interiority which is metaphysical and materialistic at the same time. Coming from rural Maharashtra where different schools of naturalism and realism flourished during the phase of post-Ravi Varma modernism, Dhotre picked up his style along the way as he did not undergo painterly training in any school with a dominant style, and he completely invested his creative energies in developing what he had innately received; the ability to do naturalistic drawings. Colors came along as he chose (color) pencils on paper as his favorite medium. Hence, something that started off in him as an affinity towards naturalism soon turned itself into the depiction of an interiority of the self and surroundings, their eternal beauty and the driving life spirit. One would become overtly conscious of such qualities in Dhotre’s paintings especially when he/she sees the quotidian nature of the lands, people and life style that he chooses to elevate in his paintings. 

Dhotre, as many people, both insiders and outsiders of art know today is famous for his exquisitely painted/drawn naturalistic images of beautiful girls/models who live both in the rural and urban spaces but dress up for the artist who in this way has adopted a very royal courtly method of working on his paintings. Whoever we see in Dhotre’s paintings are real people in real situations but they shed their ‘realism’ and ‘reality’, and their indebtedness to a particular place or location once they are transformed into painted images by the artist. This is an alchemic moment where the interiority of human beings are brought out through the erasure of ordinariness and location, and also through the accentuation given to their draperies and textile qualities, along with the illusionistic depth and texture. Those who have pursued the light sources of the Renaissance paintings often come to a conclusion and settle for the internal glow that illuminates the images. In Dhotre’s work, ordinary girls/women are attributed with this internal glow resulting into the ethereal-izing of the same human beings. Therefore what we see in Dhotre’s works is a romantic galaxy where ordinary people become heavenly ones. 

What does Dhotre achieve by turning ordinary people into divine ones and by romanticizing the scenes? I have already mentioned how the interiority of the models which is akin to the manifestation of the latent spiritual side of the same people as well as that of the artist comes out through such depictions. However, it does not just stop there. While depicting the internal beauty of a moment or an event or a series of moments that gives the illusion of an event what Dhotre captures is the aspirations and desires of a people who are even denied the chances of such dreams. That means, these depictions of the real events are in a way a romantic projection, an absence that is presented in disguise. The sparkling silk saris that the models flaunt could turn into tattered cotton rags if one keeps looking at them. No spiritual wall could stop the people from seeing it; but Dhotre knows that the art of art is concealing art. Through the depiction of beauty he overcomes the residing ugliness, deprivation, dispossession and uprooted existence. The residues of such memories are packaged into palatable and attractive capsules, turning a massive tragedy into an engaging comedy. 

If one looks at these works carefully, with more surprise than it generally gives away one could see the loneliness within which each female model is placed. Their bodies are absent presences for they do not evoke any sense of (male) gaze. The maximum they evoke is the ultimate compassion and sympathy, especially when one is freed from the initial awe and surprise at seeing the technical virtuosity of the artist. Dhotre has draped them with absolute loneliness and compassion. Each female protagonist in Dhotre’s works is deeply involved with herself (even when she is in the company of another woman), she seems to be decking herself up but a closer look/ a deeper look would reveal that she is no longer beautifying herself but she is in a deep meditation where she and her chosen act has become one and the same, a silently said prayer unto herself. It is quite Tagorean in this sense, perhaps Dhotre through his visual poetry has moved closer to Rabindranath Tagore, who in fact had never depicted a figure naturalistically but had always been efficient in capturing the lonely depths of one’s own self both in lines, colors and words. Traveling from a different direction, without making any tall claims, I would say, Dhotre too has reached such an exalted position of the artistic self. 

This meandering through the folds of selfhood could sound a bit conventional for the rebellious beginners, but I would say that the interiority of the artist has been plumbed for meanings by the artist himself, that’s why at some point we feel that the loneliness that envelopes the female protagonists in his works is nothing but his own loneliness, the much-kept-aside story of his existence, the reticence and the implosion of thoughts. During the last three years, without many taking a real notice of it, Dhotre has moved a bit far away from the usual painterly style that he is known for. This is not so apparent when one takes a look at the works cursorily because the style remains ‘naturalistic’, colorful and familiar to his innumerable online and offline fans. But a pair of critical eyes could see that the bodies that once held those clothes, those saris and draperies have gone missing. Now the saris are hanging on their own on some pegs (they are almost absent as the saris fill the pictorial surface leaving no space for any other embellishments). They show the cascading and rippling of silks but one would wonder why the artist has kept his favorite female protagonists aside? In my view, Dhotre has been preparing for painting the absence directly for many years and the naturalistic paintings that brought him fame and riches have been just his warming up towards the depiction of the larger truth; the truth of his creativity and existence. 

The interim phase of the saris even has been over by now as Dhotre has moved into a different zone of creativity that many least expected from an artist like him. Dhotre has never expressed his political views in any of his early works directly. Nor has he ever made a direct political statement that would make him a staunch follower of some kind of prevalent political ideology. But of late Dhotre seems to have taken a decision to show his political nature; the politics of the dispossessed, disadvantaged and discriminated people. He speaks of them through the symbols that he has carefully created in his new zone of creativity, large and small scale installations and assemblages. In them he seems to have become a great champion of the women’s cause. The early romanticizing of female protagonists for revealing their interiority has given way to the exteriority of the living conditions and living culture of those women who are absent because they are not beautiful in the conventional sense. The silk saris now look like the projections of the ambitions and desires of his ilk. But behind those silk attires there are the rags that envelop the female folk in the rural areas. They convert those cheap saris, after using them for a long time, into quilts and duvets, they exchange them for goods, if not they are using them for winter comforts. 

The installations and assemblages that Dhotre has created of late are not completely represented here in this given display. However, with the given works, one could see how he has become the champion of women’s cause. The assemblages are made out of those cotton saris and each constituent image/symbol carries a particular meaning; one could see women holding hands to form a human chain, some of them representing the female genitals and so on. These relief-like works depict the life of women in rural settings, their successes, failures, their angst and anger, and their ultimate ability to fight and survive. In some of the works, if one is privy to know the details of Dhotre, he/she could see the autobiographical references of the artist. He has created a pair of huge sparrow nests that resemble the shape of a pregnant belly too. The surfaces of those nests are also created out of the cotton clothes prepared and used by women. There are phallic symbols stacked in rows, beautiful covered with silk sari pieces, as a critique of male aggression, patriarchy and containing them with female power. This is the only space where Dhotre goes back to his romantic projections about a world which would be flawless through the interventions of art in general. 

Shashikant Dhotre, as I mentioned elsewhere is a man of few words and is reticent in vocalizing his pet ideas as he has chosen visual expressions as his forte. Dhotre is not a feminist in the conventional sense; I do not think that he ever wants to be known as a feminist. But he has great regard for the female folk. Dhotre does not do any lip service to this effect, on the contrary he has set up large scale working units in his village Solapur, where hundreds of village women collect, prepare and stitch for Dhotre’s work turning them not only into paid support staff for his large scale installation works but also as potential collaborators in creating his art as well as in standing for their own cause. Such artists are rare these days who pay back to their own communities and Dhotre is one such rarity with laudable contributions.

Wednesday, December 19, 2018

Epic Theatre of Current Absurdity: The Art of Pravin Dhanuskar

(Artist Pravin Dhanuskar)

“Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it,” said the famous German playwright and poet, Bertolt Brecht. The re-articulation of the classical dictum, ‘art is a mirror held up to nature’ came via William Shakespeare had taken an absolutely different form, shape, complex and effect in the hands of Brecht. For him art is a hammer that could ‘deconstruct’ and ‘reconstruct’ the society. It connotes the physical power directly employed unlike in the technological world where physical power is always mediated through machines, tools, networks and retailing. Here in the case of Brecht we should be taking ‘physical power’ as the imaginative power of the human creator who mediates it through his/her works of art. Pravin Dhanuskar is quite Brechtian in this sense both in revealing the epic theatricality of life and also in eking out a response from the audience.

Epic theatre, though the word connotes magnificent scale and form, does not really reflect upon classically epical subjects but the topics and subjects around the artist and builds its dynamics in the course of an interactive display of histrionics. We see the same in the works of Dhanuskar as the subject matter that he chooses for painting those ‘dramatic’ scenes is rightly picked up from the society around him. Hailing from a farmer’s family and later on migrated to a buzzing metro city like Mumbai Dhanuskar knows the best of the former and worst of both the worlds. But that does not put him off, nor does he turn into an existentialist who either turns his gaze into oneself or unto his shadow. Instead, Dhanuskar boldly looks around and picks and chooses such vignettes of events that could be easily identified by even an unsuspecting spectator in an art gallery. The images that I would be elucidating soon in the following part of this essay have a telltale nature and invite the viewers for a closer inspection. The format that Dhanuskar prefers may not be epic in scale but the essential politicization involved in the image making process has an epic quality.

Dhanuskar’s politics is his art and vice versa. Outside the art the politics of his kind cannot function for the sheer functional impossibility. An artist who speaks of the deprivations that the farmers face today in India may be ostracized just for his dissenting voice. While he is expected to be singing praises of the sacrifices done by the farmers and soldiers for the country, his dissenting could be taken for an act of betrayal and his dissenting voice might place him among the anti-nationalists. In such a scenario, telling truth and using the hammer at once to wake up the society and reconstruct it needs a different aesthetical strategy. Dhanuskar employs the image of a cage (as quotidian as the wire mesh cages that protect the saplings along the road dividers and footpaths) and attributes a different functional value to it. He makes a series of ink drawings titled ‘Stringing Up’ in which instead of the expected saplings he places an emblematic human figure, which is attacked and vandalized by daggers of different sizes from all the sides. At one point a stringed cage is cut up into two in the middle and the process the man inside also is cut into two parts. 

A sapling is expected to be nurtured and cared for. That’s what a farmer does to a sapling or the paddy shoots in a field. The wire mesh cages on the road sides are supposed to protect the saplings that would grow into trees to give shade and oxygen to the future generations. Gardeners water them from all sides and even make the soil at their roots loose so that easy absorption of water is made possible. But what happens here is the ruthless attack. The sapling is replaced with the emblematic farmer himself and he is ‘cabined, caged and cribbed’, besides he is vandalized and annihilated. Dhanuskar’s politics comes in such a metaphorical way, which is akin to the epic theatre that Brecht had initiated in the last century Germany. The simple, harmless and a bit childlike ink drawings in the first instance itself cajole the viewers to what they know; it is then they are forced to see how do they know it and why do they know it. The moment they understand it through the process of general information regarding the contemporary times of our country, one enters into the world of such simple yet difficult metaphors and feels the persuasive politics of those images.

‘Hunting Binoculars’ is an interesting series that is treated a bit more directly than the other works by Dhanuskar. Binoculars, as we know, do not hunt; they are used by hunters. Binoculars, at the same time suggest the safe distance that the hunter/s takes during the act of hunting. That means from a safe distance a group of people are hunting hapless human beings who live harmoniously with the nature. However, the moment the hunters locate a place for their game the fate of the dwellers in those places is changed forever. They get displaced or become permanent migrants elsewhere. Some may become urban poor and some become urban laborers. It is the grand metamorphosis that India today is undergoing; transformation of people from human beings to subhuman creatures in a world of urban slavery in a Kafkaesque turn of events.

In one of the lenses we see an emblematic face; it could be that of the hunter or that of the viewer. Here is an interesting alchemy as we look through the lens of a pair of binoculars we too become a part of the hunting group temporarily and the sight seen through it must be fascinating. In the other lens there appear three scenes; one, the face of a troubled farmer and the field sprawling behind him, two, a jumble of worshipping centers like temples, mosques and churches, and three, a cluster of nuclear reactors. Dhanuskar quite subtly identifies and sets before us the conflict zones without making much hue and cry about it. We could see development, unrest in the agricultural field and religion are the three conflicting points in our society. People are ready to die and kill for these three things and it mars the whole onward journey of a might country like India. Perhaps, our politicians want to retain these issues unaltered or they do not want to find a permanent solution so that the vote bank politics would find its future niches decelerating the progress considerably. What one never fails to notice in Dhanuskar’s ‘Hunting Binoculars’ series are the faces of the emblematic human beings that almost become the faces of Scarecrows.

‘Scarecrow’ is a closer to home metaphor for Dhanuskar as it stands curiously and eerily for the others (and absolutely naturally for the farmers in the fields or living in the farming villages) and with its hidden power scares away the avian pilferers. Here, Dhanuskar gives a twist to the meaning of a normal scarecrow; the hidden and unarticulated power of a common man, as it was a reflection of the Bollywood line, ‘Don’t underestimate the power of a common man.’ At the same time scarecrows could be simple effigies that represent evil powers and negativity. In Dhanuskar, the scarecrow faces oscillate between these two meanings. In his series, ‘Height of Memorial’ he almost lampoons the political bigwigs who go around in a statue installation spree. A statue of any height, made of any material or has any ideology to back up is bound to collapse in the long run or rather assume a new meaning in a changed time. Dhanuskar forwards this critique on memorials through this series where the faces of the statues, as expected become the faces of scarecrows. The same political satire once again comes to play in yet another series by Dhanuskar, titled ‘Trepidation.’ The same scarecrow faces are repeated here also but they are fitted on to the bodies that enact the famous yogic postures and challenges, advertised and propagated by the powerful mainstream media and the power centers itself. The viewers need not go very far to understand what the artist exactly wants to convey. But he forwards the critique with discretion and does not want to hurt anybody’s sentiments unnecessarily. As a master craftsman, Dhanuskar knows how to hammer the society and wake it up.

‘Pachyderm-ic Pressure’ is another series that Dhanuskar brings out in this exhibition without losing his critical verve but keeping the idea of epic theatre in mind. Elephants are curious animals, reminding always of the magnificent forest lives of yesteryears and the distant historical times when the mammoths and dinosaurs had ruled the earth. However, in his series Dhanuskar presents the elephants as multi-trunked magical creatures that could exert their pressure on the society and tame it; an elephant that grows to the level of a monarch or an autocrat by virtue of his mightiness could control societies with fully developed and intelligent human beings, and render them absolute puppets in his hands. Whether this series should be taken as a direct commentary on social events or they should be seen within the aesthetical context is up to the viewers, and that is the beauty of the epic theatre unlike the proscenium theatre based cathartic presentations. In this context, a latest series titled ‘Ill Omen’ depicting three nocturnal creatures should be mentioned. This work, which is quite striking, comes as an underlining to his politico-aesthetical thoughts. Dhanuskar believes that the bad times are not over; it has just begun and many more to come. How and when it would come, as an artist he does not have answers, but he sketches out the ominous times where we are destined to live through.

I would conclude this essay by mentioning two video installations that Dhanuskar has presented in this exhibition. One is titled ‘Orthodoxism’ and the other is ‘Vibration of Negativity’. The titles as well as the presentations are simple and direct but as I mentioned in the beginning, there is an epic theatre quality to these video installations. Orthodoxism, as the word suggests, has political orthodoxy working overtime to retain their chairs of power. They are ready to do anything for that; including bribery and backstabbing, kidnap and murder, confinement and encounter etc. In the video we see masked characters in a mime charade enacting telltale acts of power struggle but what makes us sit up is the sound track that contains the screeching and howling of these ominous characters. All of a sudden we realize that our lives are enveloped by such inhuman cacophony that often we get accustomed to. Separated out of the living context and posited in the theatrical situation, this shrieking wakes us up, hammers us down and instills fear in us but at the same time the courage to call out ‘stop’. In ‘Vibration of Negativity’, Dhanuskar goes back to his familiar zone of agricultural field where he places the scarecrow as the central figure. We see a man trying to approach it but failing in each attempt. There is something negative about it the scarecrow; taken in a positive sense the negativity scares off the birds but in a critical sense, as we see here, the scarecrow becomes a stand in image for the autocrat who does not allow people to go near him. He is not only negative but also dispels any efforts to assail it. It takes a lot of effort to cross the invisible ring of negativity that it exudes and overthrow it.

Pravin Dhanuskar is an artist who takes subtlety as his mode of action; but his mode of expression is different. Through very subtle washes and strokes he creates such images that surpass their shyness and take people by force and ask them to delve deeper. Playing with the familiar today in our socio-political scenario is as good as playing with fire. But one needs to develop special techniques to avoid headlong collisions with the current times but with well-aestheticized moves he could take it into his stride and articulate for an enlightened and politically conscious audience. Pravin Dhanuskar has this wonderful ability/agility to handle the current socio-political forces and it gives him the courage to be a true political artist in one of the pivotal phases of 21st century India’s history.

Sunday, December 16, 2018

The Trap That Subodh Gupta and Riyas Komu Are In

(keeping safe distance is the best policy; Subodh Gupta's Very Hungry God)

Revolution or social change enabled by technology has increased the pace of everything and the idea of immortality has been reduced to small packets of satisfaction with a closer expiry date. If we had to wait many years to deliver goods, justice and retribution, today with the aid of technology it happens in no time. When social dynamics changes in this fashion, the rise and fall of socio-political and cultural icons also happen in the same pace. Art market boom brought forth several art heroes and with the collapse of the market many of those heroes also went into oblivion. The latest phenomenon is #metoo which has exposed many dignified personalities of their ugly faces that stink of sexual predation.

The latest one to fall is Subodh Gupta, an artist who grew beyond his own imagination to become a global icon of Indian art. Hailing from a small town in Bihar, with no good English and no good academic knowledge and also with no good craft or skill, Subodh Gupta could position himself at the top of the market aided by the spin doctors of art market and by his own raw cleverness. His growth was phenomenal and could be sufficed in a line: ‘Thus Subodh Gupta became a global art star.’ All what could precede that one line depends largely on how he has narrated his own artistic journey or on the hagiographic writings masqueraded as well thought out theoretical studies on his art by Italian scholars (all tailor made for the market, one should say) and other soothsayers from elsewhere. In short Subodh Gupta was not an artistic phenomenon but a market phenomenon. The global art market needed local heroes from all over the world that boasted a list of super-rich people and a billowing market with aspiring art collectors, buyers and investors.

(golden pinches from behind- Subodh Gupta)

The phenomenon was simply a gambling game that could have been played in real estate sector or in any other investment market. Like any other transaction in the market needs ‘goods’, it also required symbolic values attached to these goods and the makers of it. While the brand of a vehicle or the location of a property mattered a lot in the symbolic value exchanges, art market also needed a brand around which all the symbolic values of art goods could accumulate. Subodh Gupta was simply that one person to whom the symbolic values were attributed. In this clever ploy played by a handful of people who managed funds and moved the art market worked well as they could establish a new kind of art that needed only the artistic name and the symbolic value not really his design, intelligence or executive powers in making a work of art. His job was to parrot a custom made script created by the brains behind his works and his studio. “Start with Rs.3 Crores and above, if not, please have a cup of tea and leave,” an art enthusiast once visited Subodh Gupta’s studio in Gurgaon was told by two heads of a major gallery in Delhi that deal with Subodh Gupta’s works exclusively. The visitor had sought an appointment not to buy his art but to meet him and invite him for a project. The visitor was never allowed to meet Mr.Gupta, who was ‘busy’ for the visitor had no access to Rs.3 crores.

Now Subodh Gupta has been accused of sexual harassment in an instagram handle as a part of the ongoing #metoo campaign. Though a few small things were also caught in the anonymous trail of stories of sexual harassment in the handle the big ones named were Riyas Komu, Valasan Koorma Kolleri, Gaurav Bhatia and now Subodh Gupta. Riyas Komu was removed from the organizing committee of the KMB and also he was divested of his responsibilities as a contributing curator of the Serendipity Art Festival to be held in Goa early next year. The second wicket to fall is Subodh Gupta who, ironically, is also a guest curator in the forthcoming Serendipity Art Festival. Subodh Gupta has pulled himself out of the festival also the organization has severed their connections with him. Though Subodh Gupta has denied his alleged misconducts with girls, three major galleries dealing with his art, namely Nature Morte, Hauser Wirth and Gallery Continua have technically criticized him and categorically said that they have a ‘zero tolerance’ approach towards sexual harassment in the work place. This criticism on the artist and the apparent distancing from him for the time being have surprised the observers though that is the politically correct thing that they can do at this juncture for #metoo is not a local phenomenon but an international one that has brought down many big trees in the cash rich, fame rich and partiarchal fashion and film industry.

(We don't ask for it. Subodh Gupta in Vogue cover)

“Why exactly did you come here?” asked Riyas Komu to the woman artist who came to Kochi while he was feeling her up in a bar where curiously only those two were present at that given time. “Do you think that I should fuck her tonight?” asked Subodh Gupta to a friend as the artist eyed a young female assistant (both reported by the herd and scene instagram account). What might have prompted them to ask such questions? Was it their absolute maleness which they thought was extremely irresistible to the female artists or assistants who come around them? Was it the very idea that they had everything in the world and they could do anything with anybody if they wanted? Or did they think that art world is like that where aspiring young women come around only to be laid so that they could climb up in their careers? Were these artists simply power blinded? In my opinion, all these could be rolled into one to find the reason for their unwanted advancing towards the women artists.

Absolute patriarchy and male arrogance make someone with some fortune and fame in hand so power drunk and blind that makes them let go of their sense of discerning. While dignity is demanded from those people whom the women artists admire and respect these people take it as a sign of invitation. One must remember what Tarun Tejpal, the veteran news person had said in a similar situation; he said he has misjudged the situation. That means he had thought the young journalist’s proximity and confidence with him as an invitation to bed. Valsan Koorma Kolleri, a good old man whose trail of harassing females has been known amongst his friends but often thought that his approach was either fatherly or avuncular until it was proven otherwise by young girls who were younger than his own daughter. Such a shame! This was what exactly the senior journalist, Gowridasan Nair of the Hindu newspaper did to the daughter of his own friend and confidante.

(Mud on person;Subodh Gupta in an early performance)

With the gallery distancing from Subodh Gupta and making their unambiguous statement regarding workplace sexual harassment, one thing is clear that the forward journey of Subodh Gupta is a bit difficult. However, there is some ambiguity in the disowning statement of the galleries. They have not made it clear that whether they would be dealing with Subodh Gupta in future or not. There are two clear scenarios now: One, they would stop dealing with Subodh Gupta completely. Two, they will wait for the merit of the case to roll out with time and once the dust is settled they would revive Subodh Gupta with a brand new exhibition or a completely changed personality. The first scenario is distant and remote for such an investment has gone into Subodh Gupta’s works so it is very difficult to ‘kill’ all those capital and profits in one go. The second scenario is feasible because unless someone comes out with a name and files a case against Subodh Gupta, no legal actions can be taken against him. Even if someone files a case he has the wherewithal to deal with it even if it is a protracted fight within the legal system of India. This should give some hope to Subodh Gupta and Riyas Komu. Both of them could hope that they could come out clean at some stage.

But that is easier said than done. The fortunes could change overnight. We have many such examples: from Vijay Malya to Nirav Modi (both of them are now fugitives), Lalu Prasad Yadav to Subrato Roy. In Indian politics now winds are changing their directions. Anything could change at any time. In Bollywood both Shakti Kapoor and Shiney Ahuja never came back after sex allegations. Tanushree Datta has created a huge dent in the image of Bollywood veteran Nana Patekar. Recently in Kerala, plagiarism has brought down the visibility and respectability of three major cultural figures such as Deepa Nishant, Shree Chithran and Sunil P Ilayidam. There is something called public ire. One cannot say how public would react once such grave allegations are made against the celebrities. When Riyas Komu’s name was mentioned in the inaugural function of the present edition of the KMB there were oppositions from the audience. When Riyas Komu was seen hanging out in the KMB venues, some women activists raised objection. Subodh Gupta is currently in a glass cage and what would happen to him if he dares to come out of it, none can predict. We should not forget one of the top names in Chintan Upadhyaya who is languishing in a Jail in Thane. Even his rehabilitation in the art scene after his release seems to be doubtful for market is never lenient to aberrations if it is not willing pornography. Film star Dileep’s fortunes have dipped abysmally after he was jailed for harassing a fellow actress in the Malayalam film industry.

(Precarious balancing: Subodh Gupta with his work)

In that given context and backdrop, whatever kind of money riding on Subodh Gupta’s name and works, the concerned agencies may not be comfortable to work with him again. Nature Morte has a woman co-owner and director and it would be difficult for her to endorse a sexual aggressor which would in fact create road blocks to her own business in future. So are the women professionals in the Hauser Wirth and Gallery Continua. They must be less tolerant towards an aggressor of Subodh Gupta’s caliber. Here Subodh Gupta is not a problem but the money riding on his name. What about propping up a new star in his place and siphoning all those riches into that new art phenomenon in the art scene? Nature Morte has a few more big names in their stock. They just need to find strategies to promote the artist duo like Tukral and Tagra who have found their footing not only in art but also in advertisement, design and gaming. When in power everyone feels that he is invincible, but out of power, he is a nobody whatever riches one has. Both Subodh and Riyas may be salvaged from the troubles but they cannot seek public approval again. To gain public approval they have to go through the legal route. But the trap is that the anonymous women who have come out to expose these artists have not yet gone to the court. So the denial from these guys would remain a wild cry and the allegations will remain as allegations. So long as the allegations remain, the public appearances of Subodh, Riyas, Valsan and many others would bring unexpected consequences; even if these public appearances involve a function or an exhibition itself. The only way out for these artists is to drag the herd and scene instagram to court. But the trap is then they will file counter affidavits with real names and real incidents. It will be difficult for these artists to get out of such legal mazes.