Outside the lines

Rashid Rana, Pakistan’s most successful international artist, was for long considered Indian. But Rana is fine with that. “Art is not about citizenship or passports,” he tells Archana Jahagirdar

Rashid Rana’s work has been defined by trying to uncover the less obvious, and his technique for this has been to juxtapose dissimilar, even contradictory, ideas to make a powerful statement. In his 2006 work titled, The World Is Not Enough, Rana has created what looks like undulating sea that evokes, on first looking at it, a feeling of calm. Looking closer at the pixelated, tiny squares that make up the illusionary sea, the viewer can only back away startled. The tiny squares are images of trash that Rana photographed in his hometown Lahore.

 

At this, his first outing as a curator and the reason for his current Delhi visit, Rana has once again looked at and brought together dissimilar art from collector and Devi Art Foundation director Anupam Poddar’s collection of contemporary art from Pakistan. The exhibition, which starts today at the foundation, is aptly called ResembleReassemble. Explains Rana, “I have an interest in duality.”

Rana’s own identity has more than its fair share of dualities. His rise in 2004 in India, say some critics, was helped in large part because his Pakistani nationality was kept, if not under wraps, then sufficiently ambiguous. Rana smiles, “Those who know my work also know that I am from Pakistan. Art is not about citizenship or passports.” But he’s pragmatic as well, “I don’t lose anything if I am seen as an Indian.”

Contemporary art in both India and Pakistan, feels Rana, lives within paradoxes. ‘The local context is important. If you are not aware of it, there won’t be any fodder for your art,” he states. But contemporary artists, like most of us today, are also influenced by multiple issues, places and people. The art that has thus emerged is an amalgamation of these multiple identities, which in effect sets it free from a single one. That’s why, says Rana, ResembleReassemble is about, “looking at contemporary art from Pakistan and not Pakistani art”. Even in his selection of artworks, Rana has made a conscious effort not to include “themes that would be pigeon-holed because they are from Pakistan”.

In his work, Rana hasn’t allowed himself to be identified by a single medium, making the transition from canvas to cutting-edge technology with seeming ease. Trained as a painter, Rana has done everything from a six-screen video installation (the Singapore Biennale in 2006) to his more famous photography-based works, without missing a step. Explaining his ability to work with different mediums, he says, “It depends on the ideas.” The prices of his works have only skyrocketed. Last year, when most contemporary Indian artists felt the effects of the recession, Rana’s works continued to command peak prices.

But he claims that if anything, the escalating price of his works has had a detrimental effect. He recalls, “When my work ‘Red Carpet’ was bought for the record price of around US$ 623, 000 in 2008, it had a negative effect on me. I became worried that I would produce bad work.” He stopped working on “Red Carpet 5”, and says candidly, “I didn’t want people to think that I was cashing in on the record price that ‘Red Carpet’ had got.”

His foray into art was almost accidental. After missing the admission date for an engineering programme, Rana applied for architecture. He was, on the strength of his portfolio which included his sketches, admitted instead to a fine arts course. “My family didn’t think I would be able to make a living as an artist. Neither did I.” After graduating, Rana joined academia. He says, “My focus was on teaching. I didn’t, at that time, imagine that I could be a full-time artist.”

From an “underprivileged family” without accoutrements such as the ability to speak English with felicity, Rana says that all he had were ideas. “The class complex gave me the energy to channelise and express myself.”

With success has come pressures such as the one which led to his fear of flying (now sorted out). How does he wind down? Surprisingly he confesses to being a handy chef: “I love to cook desi food. Cooking to me is like art but without its stress. If I had the time I would go to a culinary school and learn finer cuisines.”

There is also the love of cricket which Rana shares with the rest of the sub-continent. But what keeps him in good humour is the hit American sitcom, Seinfeld. “I have every season and I have watched every episode at least six times. I know every dialogue and situation in Seinfeld,” he says.

Jerry Seinfeld, the lead in that sitcom, says in one of the episodes, “The whole object of comedy is to be yourself and the closer you get to that, the funnier you will be.” That’s just like art, as Rana would say, the closer you get to yourself, the better your work is.

Blurred boundaries

I don’t believe in nationalism in art,” says Rashid Rana, curator of ResembleReassemble. But the only common thread between all the artists exhibiting here is their Pakistani nationality. The paintings chosen form part of collector and director of Devi Art Foundation Anupam Poddar’s personal collection, but Rana says that he was “under no burden to make it a representative show from Pakistan”. Poddar started collecting works from the neighbouring nation around five years ago after an interaction with Rana. “Most of the art movements in Pakistan,” says Rana, “emerge in art schools.” He adds, “In the 21st century, artists from Pakistan aren’t concerned with national or religious identity. Several coloured threads are being woven.” The show reflects this with no singular theme running through the selection of the 75 artworks on display. ResembleReassemble will be on at Devi Art Foundation, Sirpur House, Gurgaon, from January 17 to May 10, 2010.