Nitin Bhayana: Art knows no borders

BUSINESS CLASS/ India, Pakistan show works in the miniature

One of the major beneficiaries of the thawing of the relationship between India and Pakistan is contemporary art. As visa restrictions have eased over the last few months, the cultural clock between the two countries seems to be making up for lost time.

Both countries have been routing their popular culture and exporting some visual and performing arts, or for that matter artistes, over the last few decades "" but in all this contemporary art had been totally neglected.

An exhibition entitled Ritu: A Gathering of Seasons that opened in the capital on Saturday with much fanfare, has done much to fill that void. The show curated by B N Goswami brings together 14 artists from both sides of the border to exhibit contemporary works in the miniature format.

Meeting with the participating artists at the inauguration, it was comforting as well as heartening to know discover that there is a spirit of enquiry about learning what peers from across the border are working on.

The miniature tradition has been prevalent in the subcontinent and in West Asia for centuries. The styles, interpretation, subject matter, scale and details have varied vastly in their own geographies.

Contemporary miniatures today consist of responses to this long-honoured tradition, as well as to scale, aesthetics and the process of painting in miniature.

As Goswami says, "Within these relatively small works, one would not only recognise nods of homage to the past, but also pick up strands of appropriation and subversion, quiet provocation and witty defiance."

Artists Aisha Khalid, Gulammohammad Sheikh, Amit Ambalal, Waseem Ahmed, Saira Wasim, Manjit Bawa and Manisha Gera Baswani, to name a few, produced works that elegantly combine tradition and modernity. However, the works of Nilima Sheikh and Nursa Latif Qureshi stand out in the show.

Although I have been familiar with the works of Nilima Sheikh for some time now, seeing her works in the context of this show took on a new meaning. Her soft bluish-grey series of four works fit perfectly into the miniature genre.

The subtle, thinly painted layerings on handmade paper evoke quiet and cool summer nights of romance and innocence in a landscape akin to Pahari village homes.

Nusra Latif Qureshi's work, on the other hand, cuts through clutter with her minimal and sharply chiselled imagery. In her work 'The Conflict Again', a woman sits talking to her friend or confidante, reminding one of the sakhi in earlier miniatures. Qureshi creates new dialogues in her work between colours and shapes, while paying homage to tradition.

The response from both the establishment as well as the collecting community has been nothing short of overwhelming. While interacting with the Pakistani artists in Delhi, it was interesting to note how they reacted to Atul Dodiya's 'Antler' anthology, a series of watercolours that was shown in Lahore last month along with the works of veterans M F Husain and Krishen Khanna.

The Pakistanis have long been admirers of Husain, and this time they got a chance to see him paint live in front of a distinguished audience.

Khanna told me how wonderful he felt going back to see his relatives and friends, and how he was swarmed by collectors who knew a fair amount about him and wished to acquire his work. At the show in Delhi, Qureshi's work was the first to be sold out to some of India's most discerning collectors.

Later this month, 33-year-old Delhi based sculptor Sumedh Rajendran will hold his first solo show not in his native country but in Lahore. This is Rajendran's second trip to Pakistan. Hopefully, the season of friendship and love between the two countries will blossom regardless of tensions in the past.