Sight and Sound
by Amita Malik
Increasing violence on the box
WITH the proliferation of channels, and it is becoming increasingly difficult for media watchers to keep up with them, has come the inevitable increase in films and serials. In itself this would not be a bad thing, if it stepped up healthy competition in quality and choice. But, alas, exactly the opposite has happened.

Saying it through collages, sculptures
By Madan Gupta ‘Spatu’
EVERYONE is a born artist. The only point is to discover the self. Ashok Sarin found this latent talent at a very tender age when he would display his sketches on the school board. One day he was sitting idle fiddling with a candle. He started chiselling it with a razor and a pin. Soon he discovered a peeping human figure breathing out of it. The thrill filled a new energy for expression.

Natyagrams for Delhi, B’lore
UNION Culture and Tourism Minister Ananth Kumar has said the government will soon set up natyagrams to promote different art forms in the country.

Violence as entertainment
By I.M. Soni
“SHOLAY”, the epitome of violence, will hit the screen again, announce its makers. The sequel means fortifying violence which has for years pock-marked the mainstream Hindi films.

Avant-garde show on photo art
By Suparna Saraswati

THE buzz in the art circuit of Chandigarh has begun for this summer. Keeping in line with the post-modern concepts of visual arts acknowledged globally, the Art Folio Centre for Arts launched a distinct exhibition on Indian photography reflecting the various paradigm shifts within this highly volatile medium.

The show has been aesthetically crafted by Peter Nagy, a conceptual artist from New York and also the curator of Nature Morte, a tinygallery at Qutub Colonnade, New Delhi. The assortment forms a unique collection by 10 artists of international acclaim who have travelled much beyond the realms of placid Indian photography. Each of their creations is a mark of their individualistic comprehension and artistic articulation within the framework of Indian photography as viewed today. “Contemporary Voices of India and Abroad” show comes alive with the guided tour provided by the American.

Peter begins with the obviously striking black and white section of family portraits of the artists Dayanita Singh who, according to him, confirms to the school of traditional photography by capturing the changes occurring in the Indian urban society. Dayanita’s academic approach to photo art is a straightforward one. It is devoid of any cultural content, yet it is an impersonal refinement of an artist’s vision into the world of affluence of cosmopolitan Indians.

Michael Tarr, an American artist, who has made a depiction of an architecturally diabolique Assam of 1996, also hails from the traditional category though it shifts from a level of trivial photo art to that of a modern outlook provided by sheer framing.

Peter then diverts towards the images put up by a German photographer from Paris whose range highlights the aspects of multiplicity in interiors and architecture. He peers through a cross-section of buildings, such as rural houses (showcasing folk art), translucently coloured staircases and entrances of a maharaja’s palace or a celebrity’s residence (in this exhibition film actress Asha Parekh’s house has been photographed). It is as Peter remarks: “From the high-tech super modern to the rural in its essence”.

As for the section displaying the works of Ram Rehman a graphic designer from Yale School of Art, Peter interprets the collection as “a juxtaposition of elements seen in the city of Delhi which has been portrayed as a collage of theatre, painting and advertising media”.

Next is Jennifier Bolande, an artist from New York. She is basically a sculptor using the medium of photography to display abstract kaleidoscopic pictures.

The range belongs to a new school of photo art that is essentially design-oriented. For Deepa Parekh’s images, Peter comments reflect a confluence of painting and photography. As he says, “She has played with chemicals in the dark interiors, sort of a hybrid version of photography as a form of art”.

The show possesses an interesting feature by an instillation artist Subodh Gupta who has entrapped relics of sculptural photography. According to Peter, his collection becomes a tool in the performance of visual art. As for the rose petal images by Chyrsanne Stathacos, it is the technique of photo transference that attracts the eye of the viewer. This collection might not be complete without Vivan Sundaram looking at his “Great Indian Bazar”.

Peter halts with the collection that he says is one of his favourites. A joint venture of an Australian couple, Lyndell Brown and Charels Green, portraying photography as a form of collage.

“Contemporary Voices of India and Abroad’ is not too demanding on the pocket of an art collector. The pirce range of the images vary from Rs 2000 to Rs 18,000.

A tete-a-tete with Peter:

Q: How do you view the show within the framework of Indian photography?

A: It is going from straight-forward photography to a tool available to photo artists, especially with regard to the defind schools that have been there in Indian photography.

Q: What attracts you while curating an exhibition?

A: I am very particular about space and its character. I guess that sums up the essence of a show.

Q: Do you think Chandigarhians will enjoy different types of photo exhibitions?

A: Yes I am positively confident that this exhibition will launch a new trend in the city and gain popularity. It is undoubtedly difficult to organise a photo show as compared to that of paintings. However, it is the challenge within the effort that reaps tremendous results in terms of response that is finally relevant to me as an organiser.

Sight and Sound
Amita Malik
Increasing violence on the box

WITH the proliferation of channels, and it is becoming increasingly difficult for media watchers to keep up with them, has come the inevitable increase in films and serials. In itself this would not be a bad thing, if it stepped up healthy competition in quality and choice. But, alas, exactly the opposite has happened.

Two comparatively new channels, Hallmark and BHO, which led one to expect better fare, have, without any excuse, indulged in repetitions so often, that one wonders why they don’t at least space them better. It is a different matter, because we don’t expect any better, that Doordarshan, on its Metro Channel has run two, dog-eared German crime thrillers, “Derrick” and “Investigator” with such quick repeats down the years, that I actually saw one version of investigator run on two subsequent days. As for the AXN Channel, it specialises in sex and violence, with women being battered, blood, gore and bullets flying fast and revolting cruelty throughout the day.

Not to be outdone, our “desi” channels are also keeping up with the times. Anyone who watches the South Indian channels, especially after midnight, will find, for instance, nothing short of blue film excerpts on Sun TV. This goes on throughout the night for those who care to watch, and no doubt includes a large section of people who used to frequent blue films at video parlours. They can now get them right at home.

Many of the serials and films, and the Indian Commercial cinema contributes its share, have unalloyed sex and violence just after prime time. I tried one night to Channel surf after midnight and found all but the news channels highlighting sex and violence. Even Subroto Roy’s Sahara channel, and he talked very big about moral values, has exactly the same type of serials and films as any other channel.

It seems strange that the government, which seems bothered about censoring words like quinny and deleting severed heads, has not kept an equally stern eye on India based channels, possibly for political reasons. And we media watchers are surely at fault for not devoting more attention to this dangerous aspect of the influence of TV and now Internet.

For those interested, I would like to draw their attention to a thought-provoking and disturbing report by UNESCO: ‘‘The Killing Screen Violence on Television and Its Impact on Children; A Public Hearing’’.

It is based on a global survey conducted over a year by the World Organisation of the Scout Movement and Unrecht University under the scientific supervision of Prof (Dr) Jo Groebel, the largest ever intercultural study on the impact of media violence.

All 12-year-old children were asked to answer the same 60-item questionnaire, during the course of which more than 5000 children from 23 different countries participated. It was discovered the world’s children spend an average of three hours daily in front of the TV screen, 50 per cent more than with any other out-of-school activity, including homework.

Most of the booklet is devoted to India and includes views by Sai Paranjpe, Rathikant Basu (who said most of the violence was in the news, such as the UP Assembly riot) producers such as B.P.Singh, Vinita Nanda, Sunil Mehta, Karan Razdan, Mukesh Khanna (‘‘Indian children deserved a super hero’’) Peggy Mohan, psychiatrist H.S. Dhavale, Rachna Pant, Principal Summerfields School.

And this is followed by proposed guidelines to take care of dangers, and three articles concerning the media following on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

I hope to review the report at length elsewhere, but would like to bring it to the urgent attention of parents, teachers, TV channels and programmers. It is a vital document which needs serious study and response.

It is a season of celebrations and after Rajat Sharma’s seven years of “Adalat” comes Nalini Singh’s five-minute daily serial “Ankhon Dekhi” which has completed 1000 episodes. Nalini is one of the first women to have taken up political programmes on TV, with tremendous hard work, zest and consistency, and looked beautiful in the process.

But, if you ask me, the programme I liked best was a political social research, “Hello Zindagi”, a study of the Indian middle class, including relationships between men and women, marriage, divorce and staying single, family, looking good, lifestyles, work and unemployment and the middle class struggle.

I still remember being shattered when a perfectly ordinary middle class housewife in Calcutta, complete with sindoor, confessed that she went out as a call girl by day to earn money for luxuries while her husband was at work.

Saying it through collages, sculptures
By Madan Gupta ‘Spatu’

EVERYONE is a born artist. The only point is to discover the self. Ashok Sarin found this latent talent at a very tender age when he would display his sketches on the school board. One day he was sitting idle fiddling with a candle. He started chiselling it with a razor and a pin. Soon he discovered a peeping human figure breathing out of it. The thrill filled a new energy for expression.

Today for Ashok, art is a way of life, a religion. May it be a canvass, collage, sculpture, an edifice or mixed media art, his dexterity is always at work, that too up to perfection.

Born at Shimla, educated in Chandigarh, Patiala and Amritsar, this down-to-earth humble artist had his maiden exhibition at Punjab Lalit Kala Akademi of City Beautiful in 1983. Since then he had a series of solo and combined shows of paintings, sculptures, collages and applied art, almost every year. The exceptions were the years 1989 and 1999. He missed in 1989 due to a severe accident while 1999 witnessed two exhibitions the first in January at Indus Bank and the second in December at Alliance Francaise, Chandigarh. A town planner by profession and an artist by basic instincts, his arena of creativity covers a whole lot of medium.

“The works of Le Corbusier has become a part of my personality. The forms, replicas of animals and the deeply sculptural textural quality of his works have influenced me much. My work is a reaction of Corbusier’s creative genius,” admits Sarin.

But he seems to be more influenced by the ancient sculptures and paintings of Ajanta-Ellora, the fine craftsmanship of Dilwara and the magnificence of Konark. His interest in nature, innovative approach, patience, new experiments, urge for offering something novel-break the monotony of art lovers and critics every year.

The varied art in the form of exquisite sculptures of the Hindus and the Buddhists, miniature paintings the eclectic culture of Mughal courts, Islamic calligraphy and architecture in caves, seem to have made a great impression on Ashok’s mind, right from his childhood.

His works have been admired and awarded in several state art shows. From being expressionistic to symbolic and then abstract — his dominant note is figurative. The compositions are geometrical enlivened by expressive textures, simple and suggestive, but all done with modesty and utmost honesty of the soul and heart, plus maturity of the mind which underline the authenticity of his artistic instincts.

Last year, he explored a new vista of expression by opting for the collage.He reflected emotions, ideas, passions, thoughts through the deft placement of images cut from clippings collected from various sources. He comes out with great fineness and cleverness manifesting his sense of pictorial adjustments and poetic compositions. From a distance, one can hardly distinguish whether it is a collage, photo or painting. They seem to be a mosaic of an artist’s sensitivity. The collages have nominal use of paint and brush. Rather pieces of attractive pictures bring out the non-existent.

Sarin is a trained town planner but not a trained artist. That is why he is so natural — whether he paints a two-dimensional surface or creates a three-dimensional sculpture or pastes paper cuttings.

This “untrained” artist trained a number of children and art lovers in collage-making during his exhibition last year disclosing all secrets of art to his fans with an open heart.

It is difficult to select his best collage to comment because all are one better than the other. However, I rank “Lust” number one out of his 50 collections.

It is multidimensional with a multiplicity of ideas reflecting the darker side of sexuality with vultures as symbols. The laws of a rapist encroaching upon the veiled womanhood, is the burning contemporary issue of our society in one form or the other.

Sarin is not only an artist on the canvass or concrete, but will soon be on the small screen along with his son Sahil and daughter Richa in Doordarshan’s serial “Sehar” to be telecast shortly.

Natyagrams for Delhi, B’lore

UNION Culture and Tourism Minister Ananth Kumar has said the government will soon set up natyagrams to promote different art forms in the country.

To begin with, two such natyagrams will be developed in Delhi and Bangalore to facilitate the activities of dance and theatre groups as well as other performing arts, he said in New Delhi recently while inaugurating the National Theatre Festival organised by the National School of Drama.

He said he had asked the Urban Development Ministry to allocate land for the natyagram to be set up in the national Capital, while in Bangalore, the Karnataka Government had already given a plot for the purpose.

He, however, cautioned the art community not to be overly dependent on the government for their growth. He called for more active participation of non-governmental organisations in this area.

About theatre, Mr Ananth Kumar said this art form had maintained itself despite several difficulties it faced in this age of electronic media and satellite channels. Like poetry, the experience of theatre takes one closer to oneself, he added.

The festival will feature works of thespians like Badal Sircar, K. N. Panikkar and Habib Tanvir as well as upcoming drama directors.

The festival, which commenced with K. N. Panikkar’s Sanskrit play “Urubhangam”, will stage more than 70 plays by about 50 theatre groups from all over the country. — UNI

Violence as entertainment
By I.M. Soni

“SHOLAY”, the epitome of violence, will hit the screen again, announce its makers. The sequel means fortifying violence which has for years pock-marked the mainstream Hindi films.

Worse, it means a feast of violence as entertainment which a society like ours cannot afford. We are already “sick” of violations of the law and violence of every kind and hue.

It is futile to debate and defend such films saying: art imitates life. The reverse is also true: Life imitates art. Therefore, the debate on the issue forces a draw.

The history of civilisation reveals that a nation that nurtures violence as entertainment finally destroys itself, irrespective of its “glorious” past.

Violence as entertainment has the habit of growing upon the people. They crave for more and more of it. Each dose cries for another, bigger one. It is like the compulsion of the drug addict.

The Romans derived pleasure from spectacles in which slaves were exposed to beasts and killed before cheering spectators. The thrill of a fight to death was of great pleasure.

Those interested in violence as pleasure, brought this concept to Hindi films which has vice-like grip on the minds of the masses. Before the “Bible” of violence set the precedent, violence in Hindi films was never taken to vulgar heights. The hero and the villain exchanged a couple of handblows and the issue was settled. The fight between K.N. Singh and Raj Kapoor in “Awaara,” for example.

Violence which was once distasteful, now keeps the viewers engaged and entertained. Such entertainment coarsens the soul and blunts the sensibilities. But this is what is happening in Hindi films of this genre. A dacoit representing the powers of the lawlessness severes the arms of the Thakur, Sanjeev Kumar. In many other instances, violence gives the finishing touch to the wretches. This is supposed to be entertainment par excellence.

Tragically, we regard such violence lightly. In many cases, the festive atmosphere, the rousing music, the chanting by the crowds, the betting on who would triumph or lose, the colourful costumes, and the adulation of combatants contribute to the glamour of violence. This is topped by the diabolical laughter of the evil-doer. Our film industry has been guilty of nursing this culture of violence. It is one in which gore is sanctioned and applauded.

Gone are the days when the violence, evil and butchery fell in the domain of the villain. Now, the hero excels the former in these attributes.

In one film, Amitabh, the hero, gets a plot of land vacated from the villain, Shetty, after a long sequence of violent fighting. Though the hero too takes the law in his own hands, he is applauded.

What is the difference between the actions of Shetty and Amitabh? Both nurture lawlessness and violence.

A raped and enraged Dimple Kapadia in “Zakhmi Aurat” castrates those who had violated her body. The examples are as endless as they are sickening.

But we are living in a society where, in the words of Max Lerner, “anything goes.”

We are being battered by violence from all directions. Mass media are a willing instrument. The result is that man has already lost individuality and become a mass man with an extraordinary talent for violence. No wonder, he is more cruel, bloody and difficult than before.

Brutality and callousness extend to inhuman dimensions. Entertainment violence sponsored on a mass basis enhances a decadent culture. Today, we have the hero fighting the windmills like Don Quixote. Senseless, yet entertaining for the mindless. If it is a fight unto death, it is not enough. If one is torn to pieces, it is not enough. Even enough is not enough.