Installations, visually rich art struggle to find space in city

Neha Saini

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Tribune News Service

Amritsar, June 2

It’s an art designed for space, derived from everyday life that thrives on power of perception. But sadly, the holy city has neither the perception nor the space for one of the most popular and growing contemporary art forms in India today. Installations became the next big thing in contemporary art, thanks to the likes of Subodh Gupta and Subodh Kelkar. But Amritsar seems to be struggling to open its eyes on the elaborate and involving art form. Barring a handful artists, the city art fraternity fails to provide encouragement to the contemporary genre of art. Not only the city lacks artists, who work predominantly with installations, but also the art doesn’t find space despite the presence of galleries. 

Gurdip Singh, a state awardee for spiritual installation titled Saptjeeba (God of Fire), who specialises in making spiritual installations feels that most artists in the city are “scared” to experiment as it might not work. “I have travelled to different cities of the country with my work in a career spanning over 10 years, but I did only two shows in Amritsar. The reason is that you don’t find promoters.” Another artist, Priyanka Sharma, who is known as one of the promising artists from the city, too, agrees. “The world is changing through art and with art. But Amritsar seems to be stuck in time. Just like the city is ignorant to street art and a whole lot of visual art genres, installations seem to be too far ahead to understand. The fact remains that despite a huge artist pool and potential, the city has failed to experiment with art, which beats the whole purpose.” Priyanka, a teacher at DAV Public School, works with her students on visual and installation art in her lab. 

The upcoming lot of young artists has come up with tremendous concepts, working with bamboos, shells, scrap, wrought iron and even electric wires.  The department of Fine Arts at BBKDAV’s annual art festival had colourful and live installations that were an instant hit. Gurpreet Singh and Harvinder Gill, two prominent artists working on installation art, have been leading a handful lot of artists and winning awards for their works using paper, nails, scrap and egg shells. Most of their miniature installations are displayed either privately or travel to several art exhibitions, winning them accreditations from Guinness Book of World Records. But the artist feels that Amritsar needs to break away from creative stagnation and experiment. “Lack of promoters and encouragement from seniors is causing damage to the future of art in the city. The upcoming artists are not attempting new genres or techniques but follow the routine, mundane procedure. This, in turn, affects the audience for art,” says Gurpreet. As senior artist Baldev Gambhir puts it, “We don’t lack talent but just the motivation.”

Gurpreet adds, “The closed and rigid mindset of people here would change for better if some corporate or patrons lead by example. Installations are a popular art form now, challenging yet interesting.”