IndiaStar: A Literary-Art Magazine

Chandigarh Art Installations

by Balvinder Singh

[Editor's intro: Balvinder Singh is head of
the Fine Arts dept., Government College, Chandigarh. His paintings are included
in many collections: National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi; National Lalit
Kala Academy, New Delhi; Government
Art Musuem, Chennai. -- c.j.s. wallia]

The city of Chandigarh is currently identified more often
with the Nek Chand's Rock Garden than with the Le Corbusier's
modern town planning. Maybe because the city, due to several socio-political reasons, could not keep alive the Corbusierian spirit of "installing" striking architectural structures into breathing open spaces.

Nek Chand has created, single-handedly and without any
maps ordrawings, an artistic ambience of rare beauty and charm
by installing elegant sculptural foundlings, making mighty
murals, creating gigantic environmental sculptures, embedding ornamental plants and erecting architectural marvels. And that
too by using waste-material as its chief component.

Once considered as an ugly encroachment upon the
Corbusierian concept, the Rock Garden acquired its
well-deserved acceptance because Nek Chand conceived
it as an 'art-installation' in the classical Indian tradition.

Though the term installation-art came into use in the 70s, the
history of this art can be traced back to its early Indian art
manifestations. This contemporary art form, which of late
has gained popularity in India also, thanks to the western
influences via Triennales -- the international art exhibitions
that the Central Lalit Kala Akademi -- holds after every three
years, crosses many stylistic categories -- it can be abstract
or narrative, political or purely theoretical, temporary or permanent.

In this art form an entire exhibition space is transformed into a three-dimensional work of art. The range of materials used in art-installations is almost limitless.

It was in the late 1910s that the modern aspects of installation-art
started appearing in the work of those artists who wanted to go
beyond the conventional concepts of painting and sculpture.

Artists of the Russian CONSTRUCTIVISM, German
BAUHAUS and Dutch de Stijl movements believed that art
and crafts should be integrated into architecture and design,
and that domestic environments could be improved through
a unified artistic approach based on pure geometric form.

Working in a more anarchic spirit, French-American
artist MarcelDuchamp and German artist Kurt Schwitters
crafted several early examples of works that fill and
transform a chosen space.

In the late 1950s, Allan Kaprow, an American performing
artist and art theorist, invented HAPPENING, an artistic event.
The ENVIRONMENTS that Kaprow and other artists created
provided a starting point for what later became known as INSTALLATION ART.

Although the term installation-art is now more broadly
applied, it defines artwork made in direct response to
a specific environment. Installation artists shared an
interest in making temporary use of evocative spaces
for expressive ends. Some collaborative installations
brought together many artists.

In the context of Indian art our past art traditions testify,
rather abundantly, that early Indian artists, much before
the origin of the western concepts, were staunch believer
of looking at art as a total environmental atmosphere
and not as an individual or isolated entity.

They, in fact, did not indulge in the simple exercise of
stuffing one or the other given space with crafty creations,
but strove to create an exhilarating complete-space.

Our numerous ancient temples, representing a highly
evocative and visually stimulating spatial distribution,
jointly crafted by anonymous artists/crafts-persons,
exhibit an elevating artistic cosmos of an extremely
rare order. No wonder that not even a single element,
from architecture to sculpture to painting to the
onlookers/visitors (who also become an integral part
of the total creation), can be disintegrated from these
mighty installations of unbounded spiritual and
physical charm.

Take, for instance, the Kailashnath Temple at Ellora,
which certainly is an 8th century marvel. This monolithic
masterpiece, having a rather complex architectural design,
is undoubtedly one of the greatest of all Indian sites of
sculpture. Here it is not only the architectural and sculptural
merit of different forms that mesmerises one, but also the
natural light that plays a significant and dramatic role.

However, in the contemporary Indian context, the
art-installations are as ambiguous and controversial as the
rest of our art forms. Perhaps because the commitment
with which our old masters used to work on their gigantic
art installations seems to be missing among most of the
contemporary artists, who make art-installations perhaps
only because it is an 'in' thing!

The most bizarre example of this art form, however, was a
disputable installation by Ved Nayyar, a Delhi-based artist,
which was enflamed by him to add fire to a trifling award
controversy in the Eighth Triennale(1994).

Another art-installation, by an English artist, Julian Opie,
which was shown earlier in the recently concluded Ninth
Triennale at New Delhi, was also presented at Chandigarh
as a part of its touring programme.

Though the chief concern of an installation artist is the proper
division of the given space, the space in the Chandigarh
Museum's main foyer was filled, not by Julian himself but
by the carriers of the show, in such a haphazard manner that
the show proved to be counter productive. Unlike what was well represented in Julian's elaborately produced catalogue his
meticulously painted panels gave here the impression of an
awkward presentation. For, the panels were displayed,
unimaginatively, along with alien looking ancient Indian
sculptures.

Naturally the whole show gave a farcical impression.
On the contemporary Indian art scene it is perhaps
Nek Chand, an unassuming creative genius, alone
who has developed his gigantic art-installation, in the form of internationally acclaimed Rock Garden, with the same creative commitment that our ancient Indian artists had displayed.

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BALVINDER

# 936 SECTOR 7 B CHANDIGARH -160019

(PH:780543 & 773194)