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profile review The
character called Manto
profile The two essentials
of the human condition that lie at the heart of renowned graphic novelist
Sarnath Bannerjee’s engagement with society include people and cities
which, simplistically, explains why his graphic novels are so easily
identifiable and popular and have garnered so much attention in
international art circles. “Humour is a disease,”
says Sarnath Bannerjee but instead of elucidating this corpulent phrase full
of possibilities, he moves quickly to refer to Berlin, his present domicile
where, he says, “humour is a handicap. The Germans are dark and dry ...‘dunkel’
is the German word for it...and even their levity is different from our
brand of humour. In fact when I need to oxygenate myself, I go to London.
One Friday morning, I set off for a cup of tea from Hackney, where I stay
these days, towards Shoreditch and along the way I met 12 different kinds of
people from different class structures and communities; from the Jamaican
janitor to the Turkish falalfel seller to the Italian brassiere waiter and
everyone was cheery and amusing. But in Berlin, the youth, the
‘hipsters’ don’t really converse freely. You have to have the energy
to talk to them; they don’t inspire easy conversation. I may be wrong, but
I feel there’s some kind of quasi-scientificationisation of society (in
Germany). All activity is associated with the knowledge process, and the
focus is on knowledge production. Even when they talk about art it’s
theoretical and knowledge based with reference to their own histories of
statehood and art. They’re a formal people. I have an understanding of
such theoretical structures but, at the end of the day, as an artist you
have to be able to reach some degree of lightness and ‘levitation’, if
you will. But being in Berlin has had its merits and it’s been fantastic.
There’s a certain rigour which is focused and determined. Artists there
don’t record achievements in terms of the number of shows or galleries
they have exhibited at but instead there’s a pursuance of ideas without an
overriding concern about the collectors’ needs and desires. So in that
sense there’s a great sense of integrity. But, all said and done, I’m a
South Asian kind of guy; I’m a local. Whatever they are doing is great but
it’s not for me. Whatever I may be doing is perhaps nonsense but it’s
for me.” Sarnath Bannerjee is a
great conversationalist but, underlying the easy social banter, there exists
an enormous pool of diverse ideas that is at once enticing and inviting. His
unassuming, disarming, embracing, non-judgmental manner puts people into a
stupor of conviviality and one wonders if it is a game to extract human
failings and weaknesses that he will document and archive for later
reference. But the problem is that Bannerjee is entirely bereft of the guile
required for such devious endeavours and his proclivity to engage with
people generally makes us seem suspicious and doubting. Bannerjee was born in
Kolkata in 1972 and has a BSc. (Hons.) in Biochemistry from the University
of Delhi. He was awarded the Charles Wallace Trust scholarship to study
Image and Communication at Goldsmiths College, University of London.
(2002-2003). “I wanted to study ideas,” says Bannerjee. “The sciences
are revealing but limiting. I went to study visual anthropology so that I
could breathe the largeness of Darwin. My goal is meaning-making through
history of ideas.” He wrote Corridor,
India’s first graphic novel that was published in 2004. His second novel
Barn Owl’s Wondrous Capers based on the scandals of 18th century Calcutta
was published in 2007 and his third is The Harappa Files published in 2011.
He has received several fellowships, such as the MacArthur Fund, Indian
Foundation for Arts, Charles Wallace Trust Award, Egide Bursary in Paris,
Fellow Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart and recently was a Fellow of the
Institute of Advanced studies, Budapest. Bannerjee has exhibited drawings,
sound projects and video in Stuttgart and Berlin and at Comica at the
Institute of Contemporary Arts, London. Bannerjee is also a film maker and
has written and directed a 20 minute clay-animation, “Hakim Tartoosi’s
Potency Oil” that received awards at the 1001 Digital Film festival, 2004,
and First prize at Mocha awards, Bombay, 2006 His film on patriarchy and
female infanticide, “God’s Left Hand”, was screened at the Ethno film
festival, Berlin. His film “12 Years After…” on the Bhopal gas tragedy
was nominated for The Television Network Award in Hong Kong. He has directed
a full-length fiction film on the fantasies of a twelve-year-old boy in
Chronicles of Dodo. Sarnath Banerjee additionally runs a publishing house,
Phantomville that exclusively publishes graphic novels and has been awarded
the 2008 Best Young Publisher award by the British Council. Sarnath Bannerjee’s
relationship with cities is a complex one because he objects to people who
lay claim to a city. He feels that cities are invested with an imagination
and they cannot be divided by proprietary claims. Karachi has a special
place for him more so because it is his wife Bani Abidi’s hometown. It was
no wonder then that he seemed shell-shocked when writer Mohammed Hanif
opened a conversation with him at a public forum by asking him what he
thought about Karachi, a seemingly innocuous question. “I didn’t know
where to start,” says Bannerjee. “I didn’t want to sound like a
tourist and spout platitudes about Karachi being a wonderful city with
wonderful people.” Bannerjee first came to
Karachi in 2001 as part of the peace initiative led by Dr Mubashir Hasan and
though he had met earlier with several Pakistanis visiting New Delhi, it was
his first physical encounter with the city. “People ask me if I will be
writing about Karachi from an insider’s point of view and I tell them I
need more time. I like to take pangas (liberties) with cities and people I
like. I can’t dip into superficial stories about Sind Club and Edhi like a
foreign journalist, and Karachi is not a typical Pakistani city because of
its hybridity and its comospolitanism. It is amongst the few cities in the
region that has retained the cultural nuances of various communities and has
offered historical continuity to cultural transplants. Take the instance of
Lucknow. The Lucknow in India has moved on and been diluted by modernity but
the Lukhnawi culture in Karachi remains undisturbed in its most pristine,
almost mythical, form.” Bannerjee’s graphic
novels have an air of the absurd and we can sense a kernel of truth to the
fantasies he spins. Invariably there is, but fact is not what Bannerjee is
after. He is concerned with the irony, the pathos, the forgotten element,
the trivia and the minutiae that are actually manifestations of larger
truths. “I create my universe,” he claims. In one of his graphic novels
he talks about the telephone sanitiser, the man who spends his life cleaning
telephones in offices or the psychic plumber who is called in to detect a
leak and razes the building. He creates fantastical scenarios and
institutions like the Institute for the Appropriation of Truth and spins
yarns from his observations. “I went to Empress Market the other day and I
noticed a high check-post with a lone policeman perched there with no ladder
or any means to descend or ascend and thought the man must have been mailed
there when he was a baby and he grew up there; sort of like the faqir of
Karachi with his gaze fixed over the city.” If we think him
incorrigible for creating a story like that, he has made his point. “It is
my right as an agent provocateur to outrage people,” he says. Bannerjee was recently
commissioned by the Freize Project East along with five other international
artists to create site-specific works on the occasion of the London
Olympics. Sarnath’s work titled “Gallery of Losers (Non-Performers,
Almost-Winners, Under-Achievers, Almost-made-its)” comprised 48
billboards, posters in local newspapers, and hoardings in East London. It
was based on a concept that ensued from a suggestion by his mother-in-law
who advised him to read the poem Barwan Khiladi (Twelfth Man) by Iftikhar
Arif. Sarnath’s collections of images and text are sardonic,
heart-wrenching fictitious fables that almost seem true except for the sense
of the outlandish and bizarre. Asked how Frieze invited him for the project,
he says, “Dramatically!” “It was like the movie
Rambo, where the protagonist is busy breaking stones, minding his own
business when the Colonel approaches him and gives him a mission of utmost
importance. There are curators who go scouting for talent in different parts
of the world and they found me living the quiet life in Berlin.” “My ambition is to have
cult value. I want to be appropriately, not widely, famous”. This
ambition, however, grossly underestimates Bannerjee’s fame and popularity
in India and internationally. “Fame for me is not acknowledgement but
validation based on mutual respect.”
review
One is not aware of the
reason behind this long absence but, knowing Ayessha Quraishi, this is
nothing unexpected. Quraishi is not keen on maintaining a public persona of
a painter; nor is she interested in displaying her work regularly or
marketing it. For her, art making is a private act, a sort of meditation and
the most suitable idiom is the abstract. The surfaces, rendered with various
kinds of tones and textures and devoid of any readable imagery, require a
certain level of concentration — by the maker as well as the viewer.
Gazing at her paintings with their layers of paint and a variety of visual
effects, the viewer is bound to share the experience of the painter and
whatever she aims to transmit through her work. Yet, the artist’s
decision to become invisible (just like the non-existent figures in her
canvases) in the art world is an important step. Considering the trend of
repeated shows by certain artists in multiple galleries, Quraishi’s
approach appears unusual. She may have produced significant works in the
past but, in our circumstances, an artist has to perform and exhibit
continuously, irrespective of quality and just to meet the pressure of art
galleries and the market. It is the quantity that ensures an artist’s
status in the closely-constructed world of art. At the Koel Gallery,
Ayessha Quraishi has put up works created with minimal aesthetics. Sweeps of
black paint, areas of white, and coats of thin colours is all that her
imagery is about. Often, the black and white portions are composed within
single works while several paintings are variations in different dark hues.
In some works, only a slight mark was used to complete the visual. Despite
the diversity of pictorial elements, by and large, the works are created in
an expressionistic manner, leaving strokes of brush, drips of paint and
lines made by the moving hand/arm intact. However, unlike the
general practice, these do not seem hurriedly-applied marks; these contain
the artist’s subtle, sensitive and delayed touch. In fact, the work rather
than denoting some sort of ‘expression’ reveals a sense of meditation
and reflection — on the space, colour and form. These art pieces appear
simple but turn complex when a spectator sets his gaze and concentrates on
the detail. It might be that the
experience of meditation is the real content that the artist desires to
convey to her audience. The slowness, softness and smoothness of life is
perhaps her actual intention. The aspect of quietness
and meditation was visible when the artist bent, quietly unfolded and rolled
out her long scroll containing a sequence of similar kind of visuals on the
opening day of her exhibition. For the visitors, it was like looking at a
film reel displaying section after section and finishing before the last
episode/frame. However, unlike a film which has a narrative, with a
beginning, middle and end, the long scroll of Quraishi consisted of almost
identical images, mainly because those were interconnected; the whole piece
was conceived and treated as a uniform work. The work of Quraishi has
another connection with the world of cinema; it is her chromatic choice that
links it with the realm of the celluloid. If one examines the history of
cinema (even in that brief span of almost a hundred years), the film has
gone through many stages: from silent movies to black & white cinema to
coloured motion pictures to the now digitally-made movies. Whatever the
developments we have already seen or envisage for the future, there is still
a romance attached with the black & white cinema (in photography, too,
b&w prints are aesthetically rated higher than the colour or digital
photographs). This approach is equally
preferred in other areas of cultural and artistic expression; thus any work
in monochromatic tones is regarded as sophisticated. Arguably, the
association of a single colour with the idea of sophistication was based
upon the assumption that one could excel at a time when not many means were
available (an observation that may be true for films but not in relation to
visual arts where black and white are just like other pigments that are
easily available). So, a work of art in black and white is considered
challenging because the artist has deliberately avoided embellishing it with
other shades. One needs to realise that
instead of colours, there may be other elements, formal and conceptual,
which could fulfil the absence of various hues. In the case of Quraishi, a
range of textures and tension between thick and thick application of paint
served to satiate the eyes — much like the Chinese watercolour paintings
which capture the sensation of a scene with their innumerable tones of grey.
One must admire Ayessha Quraishi’s choice for having shunned a wider
palette (even though there were a few exceptions in the exhibition) but,
likewise, she has forsaken the trap of concepts, meanings and content, and
taken her art to a brave new world of sensation and sensuousness. caption Oil on Paper, Size
30.5''x78'' caption Acrylic on Paper, Size
28''x28'' caption Acrylic on Paper, Size
28''x28''
The
character called Manto The year about to
end can rightly be called Saadat Hasan Manto’s year. Many publications,
plays and seminars have been held about the man and his work in the
Indo-Pakistan subcontinent as well as various other places round the world;
in fact, wherever Urdu is spoken and read. Last year, Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s
centennial year too was celebrated all over the world, which was a cross
between hagiographical adulation and a serious revaluation of his
contribution. So it was not surprising
that the newly constituted but very active Azad Theatre decided to also
stage a play about Manto. Nor was it strange that the theme chosen was the
charge on the acclaimed writer of being downright vulgar. Manto had to
repeatedly face trials and was even sentenced for this very offence; out of
stress, he had a breakdown and was treated for mental ailment in an asylum. The dramatisation of the
trials and tribulations that Manto faced was on an established format. The
writer was there as a character playing his role and reading out excerpts
from his works considered vulgar and also reading out his own defense which
was either in reply to the charges in court or in some other writings which
addressed the issue pointedly or indirectly. This was provided a greater
depth by enacting portions of the stories that were marked for being vulgar. In this production, there
were also some characters from other short stories either in the background
or playing bit roles, the most notable being Bishan Singh from the story
Toba Tek Singh
who stood in one corner at the back of the set continuously muttering
some of the now famous phrases as if overseeing the absurdity of the whole
situation and foretelling the consequences of acts that were being indulged
in due to shortsightedness or immediate political point scoring. The dramatic edge was
retained by interlacing the arguments in defence with the enactment of the
scenes. This play titled Dafa
292, which actually
is the sections in the Pakistan Penal Code that address the issue of
vulgarity and obscenity, revolved round three of the stories that were the
most targeted namely Kali Shalwar, Boo
and
Thanda Gosht. As it is, Manto focused on
the theme of sex and its place in society. In the post-Victorian period, the
traditional understanding of sex was undergoing a revolutionary change and
many of the leading writers in the world were referring to this changeover.
From total silence and hush hush to a more open recognition at the societal
level was even too bold a makeover for the western societies in the
beginning, while in the very closed and sanctimonious societies like ours
this was the next worse thing to an atomic explosion. All the writers who
were prone to making this the theme of their work were liable to be charged
under the law and stigmatised by the mainstream on moral grounds. The real role of the
artiste is to challenge the parametres that are sketched round society and
to constantly try to break the circle and challenge the status quo.
Manto’s concern was not only to find a proper place for sex in our society
but to be lured in by its all-encompassing nature, mystery and embedded
chaos. The productions of Azad
Theatre have developed a pattern which was not unduly ruffled in this
production staged at the Alhamra under the directorship of Malik Aslam.
Usually the sets used are minimal, and often the props and the sets play an
interchangeable role. At times, the props become part of the set and the set
also becomes a prop. There has also been a stress on stylised movements
which can be in the form of dance or dance-like steps by a single actor or
by a group and then there is live music. In this play, there was
just one musician who played the harmonium, and at times also broke into
part of a song. This frugal use of music perhaps served a greater dramatic
purpose than in the general run of parallel theatre where actual singing and
dancing is both poor in quality and quite distractive. The production was neatly
handled; it was also short and sweet and no attempt was made to prolong the
action of the play. At times the bare sets, the stylised movements and
dramatised reading gave the impression of the production being too close to
tableaux. Usually when a text which is not meant to be written for the stage
is adapted, it carries this inherent danger of either fizzling out as being
too literal or an overt attempt is made in filling it with activity. All
this at best remains extraneous to the main action. The role of Manto was
handled by Waseem Haider with poise; Usman Zia played a distraught Shanker
while Sarfaraz Ansari played a Tiresias-like Bishan Singh. Others in the
cast included Aliya Abbasi, Hola Qureshi and Nadeem Abbas. It seems that Azad Theatre
is well on course. It is a new group though its founders have been working
for years in other theatre groups. The rule that the more the number of
groups, the better for theatre seems to be holding out as the plays of this
group look more finished now than the first play Hashr’s
Rustam and Sohrab.
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After a
hibernation of 14 years, Ayessha Quraishi is showing her art again. Her last
solo exhibition was held in 1998 at the Indus Gallery in Karachi; her recent
work was shown at the Koel Gallery in Karachi from Nov 29-Dec 8, 2012. The
exhibition, titled ‘Letters from an Underground Vein Read’ comprised 44
art pieces, mostly in oil and acrylic on paper or timber. Apart from one,
all her works were executed in black, white and different shades of grey.
