Since February 19th, 1996
in Art Asia-Pacific July 1999, Australia
What Sort of India Did
Japan Encounter?
"Private Mythology: Contemporary Art from India" was organized by the Japan Foundation Asia Center and presented at the Japan Foundation Forum in the Akasaka district of Tokyo from October 17 to November 29, 1998. It included the work of eight artists, Bhupen Khakhar, Vivan Sundaram, Nalini Malani, Ravinder G. Reddy, N. N. Rimzon, Sheela Gowda, Sudarsham Shetty, and Ayisha Abraham.
This is probably the first substantial show of contemporary Indian Art in Japan, and it is the first event dealing with Indian culture that the Japan Foundation has presented as one of its cultural exchange programs.
Of course, Japan and India have strong cultural ties that go back to ancient times. Japan has been strongly influenced by Indian culture, mainly through Buddhism. Courses in Indian philosophy are taught at a number of Japanese universities and there are many Japanese scholars who specialize in Indian art. Many Japanese travelers visit India every year, and it is one of the better known of the countries of the world in Japan.
Unfortunately, however, interest in India generally takes the form of interest in India's past. The India best known by the Japanese is the India that existed prior to the modern period, and it is the rich cultural traditions of the past that attract Japanese attention.
This is as true in the field of art as in any other. People are interested in the religious art of Buddhism and Hinduism, traditional miniatures, or folk art, but little is known about art produced in India after independence. Of course, there are a few internationally-known artists of Indian extraction - Amish Kapoor is a good example -who are well-known in Japan, but it would be accurate to say that most people are not aware that what is known as "contemporary art" in the West (or in Japan) even exists in India.
The act of introducing Indian "contemporary art" in Japan is inevitably caught up in a very complex political and cultural context. Indeed, to introduce the contemporary culture of any country from what was called the Third World is inherently an act of cultural politics.
There are three main reasons for this complexity. First, contemporary art as such is a political construct created by the West as a hegemonic form of culture. There is no possibility of cultural exchanges in the common market of "contemporary art" that do not refer to European modernism. Secondly, there is the general difficulty of representing the culture of the Other. There are serious problems involved in contextualizing the culture of the Other within the situation of one's own country through the theoretical device of the exhibition and the gaze of the curator. Thirdly, there is the difficulty of knowing what stance to take with respect to the post-colonialist situation in the post-cold-war world. Since Japan is not part of the Western cultural sphere, it faces particularly difficult problems in positioning the "contemporary art" of another Asian country within its own cultural conditions. The conditions surrounding an exhibition of "Asian art" in Japan are naturally different from holding such an exhibition in Australia or Europe.
What sort of strategy was adopted by Akira Tatehata, curator of this exhibition? The title "Private Mythology" and his catalog text both show his attitude toward these issues. In that article, he states that Indian artists are isolated and no longer share a "common mythology" of India. With a weakening in democratic attitudes and the emergence of a reactionary backlash, they face the "enemies" of religious fundamentalism, class and gender discrimination, and excessive nationalism.
Under these circumstances, they are unable to form a united front and have become isolated individuals and begun creating richly diverse allegorical and mythological images. Tatehata writes, "Like other modern individuals, Indian artists are relative 'others' in their community and are precluded from sharing a common mythology." That is, the artists are individuals/subjects fighting in a globalized and more and more chaotic world, a situation shared by their contemporaries, other artists who are fighting in "isolation" in various contexts all over the world.
There are many problems with this position. It retains the myth of the universality of modern art and the artist as an isolated individual/subject. One cannot escape the impression that this view equalizes and conceals the diversity and difference found in the circumstances in which art is placed in different countries of the world by treating art as "the work of the isolated individual." Tatehata, however, deserves praise for having taken a clear and deliberate stance toward the problems I have mentioned. In most cases, the difficulties are not addressed to this extent. Unfortunately, perhaps as an unexpected result of the curatorial intentions involved, this exhibition is unable to free itself of a stereotypical "Indian" image. There is something ironic about this. Although the curator pays respect to "personal territory" and divides the exhibition up into a room for each artist, the typically Indian colors and images used by Nalini Malani, Bhupen Khakhar, and Sudarshan Shetty and Ravinder G. Reddy's huge gold-plated goddesses make a very strong impression on the viewer, and the other works end up being seen in relation to them. Placed in the framework of "Indian contemporary art," these works had the effect of strengthening the stereotypical image of India widely held by the Japanese public rather than encouraging viewers to become more aware of Indian reality. There were no surprises or fresh encounters.
A naive view of "exchange with foreign cultures" is all too common in Japan. The attitude is that since many kinds of "contemporary art" exist in the world, any effort to introduce them or engage in an exchange is unconditionally good. After seeing a number of exhibitions of African and Asian art in recent years, it is becoming clear that holding these kinds of exhibitions is not such a simple act.
I am not criticizing this exhibition for its failures. On the contrary, it is a mistake to think that any cultural exchange involving a different culture can avoid failure. Only by squarely facing the reality that an art exhibition is a mechanism embodying certain political and cultural theories can we develop new ethical standards and techniques for carrying out exchanges with other cultures. With this in mind, I hope that this exhibition will serve as a stepping-stone to better efforts in the future.
translated by Stan Anderson