Bangalore

If India is a country of extremes, then Bangalore (also known as Bengaluru) is India at its most schizophrenic: swish five-star hotels battle for space with ramshackle restaurants and rubbish dumps. The last few years have been a boom time for Bangalore’s construction and real estate sectors. While ‘India’s Silicon Valley’ is home to IT heavyweights Infosys, Wipro and TCS, the city’s infrastructure hasn’t kept pace with these developments.

Jaideep VG, editor of Time Out Bengaluru , notes that, ‘Bangalore is undergoing changes that are far more visible than those that occurred earlier – there has always been an influx of immigrants to this city; Marwaris, Sikhs, Tamilians and Biharis, but because of the increased amount of media space and income levels now, the differences these immigrants have brought to the city are far more evident. I believe this is one of the factors influencing artists here.’ But this city of call-centres is generating contemporary art too, supporting a thriving community of artists and gallerists. The two most prominent commercial galleries are GALLERYSKE – founded by Sunitha Kumar Emmart in 2003 – and Gallery Sumukha. The latter was established in 1996 by Premilla Baid and has mentored some interesting artists like Shantamani M. and Ravi Kashi. Bangalore’s artistic horizons are expanding further: well-known critic-curator Suman Gopinath is planning to start a gallery, Colab Art & Architecture, in early 2009 and the government-funded National Gallery of Modern Art is slated to launch its Bangalore chapter by December.

Ranjani Shettar, Sun-sneezers blow light bubbles (2008)

Bangalore’s constellation of star artists includes Alwar Balasubramaniam, famous for his mysterious white-on-white sculptures, and Ranjani Shettar, whose evanescent cloth and tamarind-powder installation Sun-sneezers blow light bubbles (2008) was at the ICA, Boston, in July. Equally feted are N.S. Harsha (winner of Cardiff’s Artes Mundi Award 2008) and Sheela Gowda – whose GALLERYSKE exhibition, ‘Crime Fiction’, continues until the end of October.

Krishnaraj Chonat, The Coracle (2008)

A newer kid on the block is 35-year-old Krishnaraj Chonat – a child of these shifting times. Chonat’s work pokes fun at the nouveau riche who live in Bangalore’s hilariously named (and hideously ornate) gated communities, such as Purva Venezia (modeled – billboards inform us – on Venice’s ‘magical landscapes’). His most recent work is The Coracle (2008), a life-size fibreglass boat fashioned to resemble a vast, multi-tiered cake. Perched higgledy-piggledy on top of each other are white-painted gothic columns, flower-patterned lampshades and Hindu deities that gleam like icing-sugar. A mosquito hovers sinisterly over this faux confection. (Like its Italian model, Purva Venezia has come to grief because it was built over a mosquito-infested swamp.)

Navin Thomas, new project

However, Bangalore’s burgeoning economy has done more than provide artists with fodder for fun. ‘The last four years has meant that even artists at the bottom of the pile have felt a trickle-down effect’, says Avinash Veeraraghavan says, who, like Chonat and the Italian Andrea Anastasio, is another SKE artist with a background in design. Admittedly, not everyone is so delighted. ‘The real-estate boom has created an immense amount of wall-space that needs to be prettied up – hence the rise of banal, commissioned work’, complains Jaideep VG. Artist Navin Thomas agrees that the boom is a boon for ‘object art’ but not for non-commercial initiatives. Thomas (who has made his share of ‘object art’) is now turning his attention to other less commercial projects. One such – as yet untitled – endeavour is to hatch a bird in a cage that is populated by mechanical birds programmed to react to sound. Thomas wants to observe how the ‘speech’ patterns of the live animal will be affected by the interaction. Members of the public will be invited to see the work’s progress.

While Sunitha Kumar Emmart insists that GALLERYSKE supports non-commercial art – ‘Shows in our gallery are not meant for collectors per se’ – she confesses that there isn’t a wide audience: ‘With lack of public institutions, most people don’t visit galleries.’ Certainly, government bodies can’t be counted on to make a difference. The National Gallery of Modern Art has been in the offing since 2000, though its website still declares that ‘The branch will be fully operationalised during the year 2006.’ Newspapers believe that the claim will finally come good this year.

Obligatory grumbling aside, Bangalore’s artists aren’t especially bothered about government indifference. Because many local artists have had to fend for themselves, other funding models and support systems have emerged. Artist-led initiatives – like Suresh Jayaram’s 1 Shanti Road, based in his rambling family home – continue to thrive. While some critics protest that such tender-loving care has not led to many high-quality exhibitions, Jayaram points out that the gallery has helped to launch some now-successful young artists such as Tallur L.N. and Sakshi Gupta.

Sheela Gowda, ‘Crime Fiction’ (2008), installation view

For Jaideep V.G., all this is proof that local practitioners are commendably community-spirited: ‘Bangalore artists are making socio-political statements through their work because they have immediate concerns about the world they live in.’ Gowda’s solo show, ‘Crime Fiction’, is easy to slot into this category: it investigates what constitutes a crime. Here, Spider (2008) comprises ropes of plaited black hair dangling from the ceiling, simulating intestines caked with dark blood. Gowda’s work seeks to complicate the way we ascribe guilt. The blood-like web of Spider makes us wonder whether the arachnid should be seen as an aggressor or a victim.

Meanwhile, curator Gopinath thinks that socio-political concerns like Gowda’s are excitingly endemic to contemporary Indian art in general. So, Colab will cover Indian art from all over the country, focusing on ‘Modernism in all its multiplicity’, she says. If Colab lives up to her promise, it will provide a boost to an already effervescent scene.