Saryu Doshi's nine-year-long association with the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) in Mumbai ended on a high note this week. Her continued efforts in the direction of promoting young talent, which took on the form of the Young Artists Award show in May this year, was a huge success.
She notes, "People feel that it is not the job of a museum to look at young artists. The traditional role of a museum is to have the finest pieces of art, to be an arbiter of taste and offer a certain historical perspective."
The world over, artists are discovered and promoted by galleries, and only when they achieve a certain level of prominence do museums start looking at them. But, according to Doshi, the majority of dealers in the city do not have the wherewithal to promote young talent.
That's where she interceded, and used the gallery space to accelerate the process, so that, as she says "in 20 years, there will be a much wider canvas of talent to choose from".
Seven months after she took on the role of honorary director, NGMA, in 1996, she swept aside all expectations that NGMA Mumbai would be a subsidiary of NGMA Delhi. In September 1997, she hosted an exhibition to celebrate the growth and evolution of Mumbai over 50 years of independence, as seen through photographic images.
"I felt Mumbai was neglected;" she states, "it has been such avibrant seat of art. Look at the original styles that have emerged from here; look at (M F)Husain, (S H)Raza and the progressive artists movement."
In 1999, Ideas and Images was born; an annual show conceived as a walk-through art magazine that involved the community of artists, collectors, and critics. For Doshi, everything comes back to her experience as a reader, writer, and as editor with art magazine Marg.
"I treated the exhibition like a magazine, except instead of articles there were themes and levels. At first people didn't understand it, but slowly they started enjoying it because there was so much variety; it could be light-hearted art, it could be kitsch, street art, art in the home, movie posters, you name it. It worked very well and for that I give myself a pat on the back."
Quietly, NGMA had metamorphosed into a serious space for well-curated shows and retrospectives. "We have another 20 years to go before we are capable of producing a world-class museum, and besides, why do we have to model ourselves on Tate or MOMA? We are Indians, we should have a museum that fits our context."
Doshi's debut with NGMA was not unlike her stint with Marg, where she had to start from scratch. When she was asked to take over from Mulk Raj Anand as editor in 1981, Anand had, for all practical purposes, folded up the publication, leaving not so much as a pencil or address book for her benefit.
The credit for transforming Marg into a stylised product goes to Doshi, whose recommended changes are still followed. Says Doshi, "I started including more writings from Indian scholars, and stopped the indiscriminate use of published foreign articles."
Today, 102 exhibitions and 300-odd art events at the NGMA later, she has hung up her boots. But with her energy and her vision for the city's art community, it is tough to believe she will contend with a quiet, uneventful retirement.
