Address At The Inauguration Of The Golden Jubilee Celebrations Of The National Gallery Of Modern Art

Art elevates the mind

I am indeed delighted to participate in the Inauguration of the Golden Jubilee Celebrations of the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi. My greetings to the organizers, members of Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and Culture, the community of artists and art lovers, participants and distinguished guests. I note that the National Gallery of Modern Art represents the evolution of the changing art forms through the passage of the last one and a half century starting from about 1857. The foremost responsibility of the National Gallery of Modern Art is to ensure quality of its collection and to set and maintain a standard of excellence that pervades its activities such as development of galleries for permanent display, organize exhibition worldwide and preserving documents of modern art. Above all, it is essential that an exclusive area is allocated in the Art Gallery, for the young artists to present their work to the experienced artists and carry out research on modern art. There can be a series of lectures and tutorials by renowned artists organized periodically in this campus.

Art Elevates the Spirit

Art is a benign expression of the innate beauty in nature. Be it painting, sculpture, literary composition it elevates the beautiful spirit of life for everyone to see and enjoy. Such spirit silently but eloquently conveys the message of love, affection and peace. National Art Gallery must assist in unraveling the hidden talents and use the latent potential in the younger generation to bring out the beauty of life in its noblest forms. Life gets on to a higher, better and more civilized plane imparting meaning and depth to human existence and justifying and vindicating the purpose for which life was evolved. What more can you ask for, what more can you look for in a strife-stricken world where eternal human values are being mercilessly trampled upon and the beauty of life lost in relentless materialistic pursuits.

Sculpture on Captivity

On 16th September 2004, I happened to visit the Robben Island, in Atlantic Ocean, where I witnessed a sculpture synchronized with history. The Robben Island was the place, where freedom fighters against apartheid were kept under imprisonment. I specifically went to see the cell where Dr. Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 26 years. The first scene which I saw, when I entered Robben Island was a sculpture bringing out the pain of imprisonment and the dream for the freedom from apartheid. Above all it reflected, not an individual being chained but the entire people who were fighting for the freedom were kept under confinement. This beautiful sculpture appeared to me throughout my visit of South Africa. This symbolizes how the fight against apartheid reached its peak and later culminating in freedom. The sculpture is indeed a master piece integrating multiple feelings of imprisonment and an urge for freedom of a society. This unique sculpture work a bronze block image ?THE CAPTIVE? was the creation of Amarnath Sehgal in 1986.

Articulations

Recently, I happened to study a book called ?Articulations? ? Voices from the contemporary Indian visual art. I was searching in the book about what is the unique quality of the great community of visual art and painting? What is there medium? What is the relationship and status of the society and the artists? Is there any connectivity between the medium of artists like ink and brush; and the society. While R.K. Lakshman loves painting crows for it stands out against any background, whereas KK Hebber is inspired by rhythmic movement of lines. When MF Hussien says the paintings are the output of the society, it means: if the society is a mediocre society, you will get mediocre paintings, if the society is intellectual and prosperous, the paintings will reflect the situation. From these Articulations, definitely I realize that every painter and artist is a unique personality, in search of beauty out of every event which enriches him. I tend to agree with one of the artists, who say that the artists have to have ?partnership with known, unknown will express itself.? This takes me to an event that took place recently.

My Experience

Some time back I composed a poem in my mother tongue and translated it into English, titled ?Life Tree?. The message in the poem was celebration of life. While composing I never thought that the poem can be given life, beauty and creativity as I visualized. That is the time a young artist came and stayed with me in Rashtrapati Bhavan to picturesque the natural beauty of Rashtrapati Bhavan and the Mughal Gardens. He stayed with his family for two weeks and has created beautiful canvases bubbling with full of life. I can see in the paintings beauty of the flowers, smell the fragrance of the flowers, and taste the honey in the flowers and speaking to me with poems. When Manav came across my poem ?Life Tree? he fell for it and he took seven days in the beautiful environment of the Mughal garden for transforming ?Life Tree? into a speaking tree. What a beautiful creation? First time I realized painting and poem intertwined with the imagination of a painter which leads to the birth of a new creation. That new creation touches your heart, smoothens your feeling and transmits beauty and peace of the combined art into every artistic person and showers happiness in his or her mind and soul.

Artists and scientists are heroes of the imagination or of the deep insight into the nature of things. A painter appears to completely visualize the picture with his imaginative skills and creativity before beginning to paint. This I can clearly see in the case of dancers also. This is what the painter Hebber calls as the rhythmic movement. Now I realize that the lines are capable of singing and dancing, the paintings reveal that.

Promoting Creativity among Children

The paintings and sculptures bring out the creativity among children. To make the education process complete it is essential to include art as a subject in our educational curriculum. There are number of arts and artistic expressions hidden in our ancient village culture which have not been brought to usage by the modern generation. It is necessary to carry out research and bring the natural artistic strength in different areas of the country, document them and bring them as curriculum to the students. This is how we will be able to hand down the civilizational heritage to our future generations. The art gallery can request leading artists to deliver weekly inspirational lectures in the gallery for motivating the children to develop a taste for modern art.

Technology in Arts

Art has also got technology in it. When the children start learning the art, they come to know about the usage of wood, earth, stone etc. and how they can be carved efficiently to give beautiful expression to the end products and preserve for generations. For example, providing preservative qualities to the paintings and sculpture today one can use Nano-powders. The Nano powder is used for the preservation and restoration of paintings, which has the properties like thermal insulation, anti-bacteria and high fade-resistance. The various technological options in creation, preservation and promotion should form part of the art education. Today with the digital technology being available restoration of paintings can be done without disrupting the usage of the art galleries. As Dr. Lochan would be aware, in the Rashtrapati Bhavan, the Kajar painting in the Ashoka Hall was temporarily replaced with a digital print of the original. The original was placed back after a year duly restored. The Ashoka Hall continued to be used during this period for the visitors without any disruption. These phenomena can be made use of in many of the renovation which would be needed for keeping our heritage painting alive.

Art and Culture

The art gallery is a mirror that shows a dimension of our proud heritage. It reflects our way of life, how our ancestors lived, what we cherish and often what we miss. Above all art gallery brings out the creativity of our artists for generations. The gallery reminds us how newer technologies have influenced our life, and dimensions of newer languages, newer expressions and newer way of life. They are reminders of where we came from. They give us a great pleasure by satisfying our inner urge to see what we are missing in this ?modern world?. I understand that 90% of all the products that we use in our daily life would have been invented only in the last 100 years. Those that have been invented several centuries ago and had formed the most cherished invention of the mankind in those days became exhibits in galleries today.

Interactive Art Gallery

When one enters the art gallery, a sense of inquisitiveness has to be created by the environment, which will make the visitor comfortable and feel great, enthusiastic and create a sense of pride about the Indian culture and its past. And also the art gallery should become a window of the best of artistic forms in the world. The exhibits must induce a process of understanding multifaceted dimensions of human personalities. The way in which the artist viewed his or her subject. The goodness of the art gallery must make the visitor to linger on the thoughts. It should ignite them and give them solace and peace in many directions. It should flow to others as well spreading serenity, peace and uplifting the atmosphere which will promote a feeling of divinity.

The visitor should be in a position to guide himself to the specific area of his interest, rather than being driven by the predefined path. Present day technology can provide solution to this issue. Each and every gallery should be equipped with LCD displays and a multimedia presentation ? giving the salient features of that gallery, cultural impact, historical facts behind exhibits ? so that the message reaches the minds of the people and becomes a source of inspiration. The optimum mix of Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality etc., will provide dynamism and real time visualization.

We can even make it more interactive by customizing it in real time for any user who is willing to pay. For example, we can give the camera to a guide at the art gallery. The pictures will be relayed to a viewer?s home through the Internet. Looking at the picture, the viewer will direct the Guide to go closer to some pictures or objects that he likes to see more or ask questions which the guide will answer. We need such innovative techniques to make our art galleries reach every one, just in time at any place. This way we can share our cultural values and heritage and make them an object of joy for every one.

Transform the Art Galleries as Centres of Life and Culture

I would like to share with you my experience after seeing the beautiful paintings of Raja Ravi Varma in Chennai Museum. It reflects the creativity of a genius. I can see many budding Ravi Varmas in the face of our children; I have got thousands of paintings from young?s artists, particularly from school children. Art is a great culture and it shows the creativity, inherent talents of the individual and his capability to visualize the scenario, nature and the future possibilities. I am just thinking, how to provide an opportunity for budding artists to imbibe the key characteristics of Raja Ravi Varma. Children get a unique opportunity by participating in competitions like Shankar?s International Children?s painting competition.

Preserving cultural heritage

In India digital library programme has made substantial progress under the aegis of MCIT along with IISc. Many of our paintings and sculptures, which are getting damaged, should be captured in the digital form and preserved in multi-media. This will ensure preservation of cultural heritage of our nation.

Missions for National Gallery of Modern Art

I would suggest that the National Gallery of Modern Art may consider undertaking the following new projects as their Golden Jubilee missions.

a. Creation of a virtual art gallery with a digital walk through for placement in the website so that people from different parts of the country can visit the galleries from homes or students and get inspired from the exhibits. The website can also provide data on all the exhibitions conducted by National Art Gallery both national and international.

b. Create a data base of researchers who have used the National Art Gallery for carrying out research on different topics and the latest results of these researches.

c. Convert the summer painting workshops of National Gallery of Modern Art to identify the young talents on different form of arts and introduce them to a noted master of painting so that the talent can be nurtured and allowed to blossom. NGMA can also consider granting some scholarship for providing financial assistance in deserving cases.

d. Undertake a project on cost effective preservation and renovation of paintings including the application of Nano-technology as a means of preserving the future acquisitions of NGMA.

e. Undertake a project for the process of digitizing all the acquisitions of NGMA progressively along with the researched data on the art and painting. In addition the data on the author, contemporaries of the art and the availability of similar paintings in other similar leading institutions in the world. This will enable bringing out a comprehensive document on NGMA for use by eminent artists and students.

f. Conduct periodic seminars with new technology exposure to the young artists and also create a platform for the international art agencies, business experts to visit and see the inherent potential of our artists, which can pave the way for the export of these artistic items. This should be a continuous process.

Conclusion

I strongly believe that today?s art gallery has a major role to play and should act as a cultural window to our country. It should provide a platform for innovation, creativity, and propagate cultural values, and promote research and development towards enriching our ancient technologies blended with modern techniques. It should graduate from the custodian of ancient culture into a platform for disseminating cultural values across the world.

I congratulate the art community on the occasion of the Golden Jubilee Celebrations and my best wishes to you all.

May God bless you.