Where are we in the Age of Macdonalisation?

With the establishment of the World Trade Organization in 1995, the only global organization dealing with trade, the world shrinks and becomes a global village. When apples from Australia find their way into the local fruit markets of Delhi, when Tofu from Thailand is available off the shelf in Hyderabad and Manoj Night Shyamalan of Indian origin makes the film 'Sixth Sense' in the U.S. and creates a stir in Hollywood. When Mumbai born Anish Kapoor becomes the British artist for the Venice Biennale, and when Salman Rushdie and V.S Naipaul, of Indian origin educated at academies abroad win the Booker prize and the Nobel prize for literature respectively the cultural Salmon is born.

'Its an intriguing an ambiguous fish, at home in both fresh and salt water. It migrates thousands of miles to renegade itself; it swims against the current rather that with it;  it risks leaving the water to climb up rapids and thereby exposes itself to the greedy eyes of the bears on the banks, hungry for rich pickings; and after doing all this, it still has the energy and cunning to spawn something personal and new. Its intentions is to return to the wild and salty ocean, knowing that it has left behind something of value, and learnt something new on each journey. (Gavin Jantjes, "the artist as a cultural salmon") It is in this emergence of the interstices - the overlap and displacement of domains of difference that the intersubjective and collective experiences of nationness, community interest or cultural value are negotiated.

Across continents a cultural diversity and the Deridian 'difference' is celebrated and venerated as never before. India is becomes increasingly significant and through Mahatma Gandhi and the I. T. industry India gains a visibility which can hold its own with the developed world and not be looked at as a developing nation. 

At the turn of the twentieth century, our views of difference and the different views we have of art, signal a shift away from the history of visual art as a single narrative. 

The trauma of post modernism is that we seem to be everywhere at once; so many different positions seem to be available to us in our perceptions of art. If we are living in the west, our journey may threaten to take us back in time and to transplant us to many locations on other parts of the globe art emerging from different areas have changed the trope of the debate, a new emergence of an ideas of internationalism, a new perspective a new difference in the reading and making of art history, a new exotica. 

With media culture becoming increasingly global and a bearer of post modern forms that seem to travel easily across borders, bring with it a sense of homogeneity - with MTV, FTY channels regularly telecast forms of popular music such as rap, heavy metal, grunge, these styles are analogous the world over. As a result the Michael Jackson moonwalk is seen on the' thelas' of a 'subziwala' in a remote tehsil of Uttar Pradesh. Both the urban and rural Indian youth is westernizing itself, cultivating dreadlocks, wearing, short skirts and tank tops, coloring hair and using matt make up bringing in a uniform cosmopolitanism. Imitation of Hollywood stars and singers go hand in hand with Madonna look alikes on Indian music videos. This inherent duality, the ontological paradox becomes a virtual reality. 

A new pantheon has emerged where saints, heroes and martyrs, politicians, screen idols, beauty queens, cricket and tennis champions are established as the new icons of the day.

 Turning the indefinable edge of the millennium has a particular significance in the context of a modern Indian art. With the benefit of a new perspective, the basis of modernism in India comes in for fresh examination. Indian art since it very inception has been philosophical in its view point, reflecting the quality of the spirit, art partook of both the mental and physical imagination. It was extricably wedded to technique, which was expounded in the 'Natyashatra' which spoke of drama as a form of knowledge evolved by Brahma the creator, art works therefore arose from the conceptual, In India we find a concept of art that has to do with 'lila'. This emphasizes the spiritual and emotional. We have a past which is deeply layered and embedded both in the said and the unsaid. Religion, culture are wedded together. Every civilization, presents a past, displays elements of decoration in its visual culture.

Today, art is seen interchanged with life and life interchanged with art. What alone counts now is his subjective experienced understanding, the Indian artist against its traditional backdrop faces a dilemma where the contemporary artist is dealing with a new task, a new social and political situation bringing about a new perspective.

In visual culture, a refined cosmopolitan reigns - certain urban Indian artists are being taken 'seriously' by the western curators, their works being acquired by museums overseas. With the 1971 war with Pakistan, the naxalite movement in Bengal, and the curtailing of democracy during the emergency, formed the political backdrop for a new phase in art. The artists of the cities of Bombay, Calcutta. New Delhi, Madras, felt it incumbent to refer to the national situation, to document the pain of their surroundings, A pre-occupation and the need for social responsiveness started gaining greater urgency, leading to a major delineating point of view. Addressing central issues of subjectivity, urban angst, memory and mythic materials. This trend became accentuated with some younger artists, like Atul Dodiya, Surrendra Nair, Sheela Gawde, Anita Dubey, Subodh Gupta, Natraj Sharma to name a few. A refashioning of pictorial fictions through a regional contemporaneity started becoming visible. The artists have all emerged from the art academies set up by the British reeking of a colonial baggage embedded in the urban landscape. What sets the artists apart? what makes them 'interesting' to the curators from the developed world. The inclusion of their own culture, their own identities and the indigenenous styles of representation, working through quotage, appropriation and wit, their allegories reclaim an Indian route to post-modernism. 

Contemporary art practice centers around the questions of either personal or political identities; the creation of new communities; the dynamic redefinition of art practices in relation to cultural change; the dialogue between the poetic and the technological dimensions of art. The artists work up a friction between the cosmopolitan and the local, between classical iconography and vernacular imagery. In the process, they create new forms and practices that stand on the threshold between the conventional art and the ever changing public sphere. Whether it is studio painting, the sculpture- installation, the internet or the public domain, it is the above which becomes the locus of the new Indian art. Artists are working with the same basic operative variables. They seek new sites for their non-conventional art practices, new art situations beyond the purview of the established studio-gallery-museum spaces. They also attempt to develop new forms of response to their new sites and languages of art-making, acknowledging that conventionally trained or conditioned viewers are baffled by their art works and require the mediation of dialogue in order to engage with the new art idioms. 

Art in the gallery space is now being questioned, the space which has been viewed traditionally within the serenity and detachment of the hushed gallery environment is changing. Imagine a space where an art work shakes, moves, sings or talks back, senses your presence and respond to you in unpredictable ways. This is not a mere fiction or a theoretical notion, for 'interactivity', sound installation, kinetics is very much part of the art making. This has been one of the most fundamental changes in recent art practice. The art scene is becoming highly energized and art practices steadily becoming varied and less tradition bound. This is the 'new genre' where the transgressive spirit of Indian art is being dramatically portrayed. These changes reflect the larger social and political milieu. Indian artists have taken to conceptual, minimal and installation art that shaped the first world and re-contexualized it.

Exploring this transformative phase, artists are opting to work with a sense of radical, experimenting with such current image making technologies as film, video and computers. The euphoric marriage between art and technology invokes a never before, the experience of interactivity, transparency, dematerialization, penetrability and mobility. The process and its temporality replace the durable art objects, thus critically examining the notion of  'timeless art'. Installation art has come to be applied with many art forms, the big idea of bringing together the dispersed elements in a fresh ensemble making of assembled works. A reliance on interdisciplinary skills in a collaboration with heterogeneous materials. As a medium Installation art generally uses space as an element designed to be entered into a part of the process of experience. This has led to the shift of art beyond the confines of the gallery environment, the involvement of location has invoked associations of site specificity as its social history, identity and belonging enter the work.

Moving towards reindexing the international space. It is the 'scene of translations'. Beyond the demand for assimilation, beyond absolutist notion of difference and identity, beyond the reversible stances of 'self ' and other in which the euro centric gaze fashions itself as the other, as the intoxicating exotic heady stuff of a Smirnoff add - in the 1990s we have come to see the international spaces as the meeting ground for a multiplicity of tongues, visual grammar and styles. 

Various sub texts can be seen in the meta narrative of Indian art practices. The Indian brands and stars of Indian art are carrying forward their individual, personal preoccupations like Anjolie Ela Menon, M F Husain, Manjit Bawa, Tyeb Mehta to are some of the mainstream Indian artists who have now got their own brand identities. These brand identities are the aspiration of every traditional and diasporic art collector. The art markets have now moved from the hands of traditional Indian collectors to new money with the Indian Diaspora. This young Bourgeoisie and the NRI's, the upwardly mobile class corporate with their multistoried homes, new BMW's and MERC's are now filling their walls with the nostalgia for their motherland by buying the Indian brands overseas, pushing their market up. 

They are for the first time testing its identity visa a vis the world - needing the national/Indian slogan to shore up their self image, and consumer cultural confidence.

This has lead to a co modification of the art scene where Husain has become the inspiration for the new slogan 100 crores for 100 paintings. Art has now reached the market, like the share market of the 1970's art has become investment. Wealth managers such as Citibank, HDFC are looking at art as investments. Co modifying and compressing a visual culture, pressing it towards a commercialization. 

The role of art dealers who become the makers of the artists are the new 'thekedars', the dealers promote, they recommend artists. There are also serious collectors who also want a role to play in building artists though prices and they become the taste makers, dictating and becoming patrons of the arts'.

Another genre of Indian artists are paying their debt to indigenous traditions, folk and tribal practices.. Again to name a few artists such as Laxma Goud, Thota Vaikuntham, Manjit Bawa and Shyamal Dutta Ray.

While the art market is buoyant in its production and consumption of art, what is happening to the creative bowl of the country ? who is nurturing creativity within the city? In the ancient past there were visionary rulers-from Chandragupta Murya in the 3rd century B.C. right through to Shajahan in the 17th century, who nurtured talent and creativity and took it to its apogee. With the advent of the British, the cultural patrons of art changed- from enlightened kings it became a 'policy' for the natives. Art became part of the academies. British academies of art were set up by way of the art and craft colleges in Bombay, Calcutta and Madras to begin with. Soon every major town had an art Akademi. Where are the art academies today? the art academies are all more than a hundred year old. Here in lies a big gap.

The art academies here need to be re-invented they are groaning under the patronage of the colonial baggage, with the new visual jargon where complex materials are being used with technology, it needs a multi- sensorial experience that cannot be probable with traditional media. This is where we need to pull up our socks, it need to recharge and reinvent itself to facilitate the educational wheel. Obviously there is a paradox in the educational system, traditional mode presents an issue of facilitative concern to the new art practioners, such a transition, need to be revamped. The key question here is that does the post Independent Indian government understand the value of art and culture in civil society and governance. 

Art Education in India is still being confined to the fine art practice, where painting, sculpture, applied arts, ie commercial art, graphics are part of the art Akademi curriculum, photography is still limping with a crutch in some art schools, where it is part of the applied art curriculum. Photography and new media ie video art has yet to fined its way in the art academies. Studio facilities, cameras, computers are still a scarce commodities in Indian art co1leges. In the West the immediacy of the two mediums has catapulted it into one of the most significant languages of art. Museums and galleries are contributing their bit by buying and commiss ioning new work.

As part of the nation building and the post independent Identity, the first prime minister Pandit Nehru had a vision, a sensitivity towards the arts. 2% of building budget to be spent on public art. Nehru - The Nehruvian policy made a sincere effort at supporting and reversing the cultural desertification that had been inflicted on the nation under colonial rule. The creation of national academies, the Sahitya Kala Akademi for Literature, the Sangeet Natak Akademi for the Performing Arts and The Lalit Kala Akademi for visual arts. There was an effort to expand Indian museums and art galleries, the endeavour to document and save India's archeological heritage. The setting up of numerous centers for higher learning and fundamental research all contributed to the nation's progress, leading to a definite and supportive approach towards the cultural activity. 

After independence there was a strong expectation from the diasporic or expatriate Indians to speak forth and forward the effort fostered by Nehru, but the liberalization decade of today has not only failed to make any further contributions, but relegated it to a cupboard status. In the 50 years of celebration of the Lalit Kala Akademi a major effort was made to foreground the arts. But again there are a host of questions asked. What has happened in the last fifty years? We speak of one Lalit Kala Akademi who's aim was to playa vital role in the development of preservation, promotion and dissemination of art and culture, to develop new ways and means to impart the basic cultural and aesthetic values among the people, to promote Indian artists in India and abroad. Has the Akademi really achieved what it set out to? In the 50 years where are we? Have we even achieved one tenth of what we set out?

Have they helped in bringing about a change and a vision to this new art scene taking place? Where issues between artists and their cultural space become more and more relevant. The Lalit Kala is sitting on a gold mine without knowing it or nurturing it. There is only one Garhi studio in New Delhi where there is limited space. We talk about updating our practices, but instead seem to be stagnant in our developments. In India there are not enough artist run spaces. Khoj and Sanskriti provide a limited ground towards artistic advancement and exchange of ideas. There is a great dearth of art critics and curators, art managers, fund raisers. Even basic things as art appreciation is lacking. Are we still going to be colonized by the Cultural segments of diplomatic missions. 

The Lalit Kala Akademi says it propagates Indian art across the globe regularly participating in international biennales and triennials .But where is India in all of this? Where was it in the Venice biennale? India is very rarely seen in the 'Documenta' which happens in Kassel every five years. In other Beinnales like Quanzu, Havana and Liverpool Beinnales, India is rarely represented. 

The single event that the Indian state sponsorship attempted to transmit Indian art to an international platform - the Indian triennale instituted in 1968 seemed flawed at its very outset. It has already been prefaced by many protests. 

A number of countries across the globe are looking towards art for building a more cohesive society. With cultural diversity becoming a key concern, leading to a civil society and governance where culture is being given a shot in the arm. The Meyers Foundation in Australia has pumped in large sums of money to develop the arts and crafts in Australia. In the UK, plans for cultural development are being taken, either as part of the tourism initiative, or more specifically in relation to the regulation of regions of great industrial decline. In Spain in Bilbao - a small industrial area has been reshaped to magnetize and rejuvenate a small industrial township with the setting up of the Guggenheim Museum designed by Frank O Gery. Millions of tourists have been visiting Bilbao because of the museum leading to an upswing of economy. The Federation Square in Melbourne, Australia, have reinvented and recharged the atmosphere of the artistic canvas by bringing with it a new dimension, initiated by a stockbroker, Ian Potter as part of public philanthrophy. And here in India with an inheritance site as spectacular as the colossal 'Taj Mahal' in Agra, the lackadaisical attitude of the government is unable to use the Taj Mahal to its full potential and glorious heritage. 

This situation arises due to the lack of public philanthropists in India. Public philanthropy. Does it exist? In India, Public Philanthrophy is limited to hospitals and temples. There is no dearth of endowments particularly to temples. Philanthrophy has not even entered the domain of art in India. The only business house which did support art in the early era of post independent India were the Tatas. The rest of the business houses have been acquiring art for their personal wealth or to save taxes. While they have played an extremely important roles in supporting artists by buying and collecting art, how many of them have truly nurtured emerging art. Once again the 'collector' today is buying that art which will either make him powerful in the art world or enrich his personal coffers. Breeding homogeneity, leading to an assured identicalness.