About Bangalore

Bangalore is a cosmopolitan and welcoming city, eager to stake its claim as a new and significant player in the international art scene. The city has risen to significant national and international prominence in visual art during the last decade. The National Gallery of Modern Art, the oldest and most distinguished art institution of the country has chosen Bangalore as its third venue, after New Delhi and Mumbai. Bangalore is emerging as a centre for many of the most contemporary and exciting art ventures in the visual arts. The Khoj International Artists Workshop, 2002 and 2003 were hosted in Mysore and Bangalore with artists from over ten countries. Bangalore has individuals working in diverse ways, without any group affiliations.

An international artist would profit from this vantage point on the entire region of southern India, with its eclectic cultural scene. Here, the regional transcends the national to speak in a global voice. The artists of this city have consciously addressed material, conceptual context, historical identity as part of the larger artistic paradigm. Thus, Bangalore artists would also feel themselves particularly enriched by contact with fellow artists and schools such as Baroda and Shantiniketan.

In these times of transition, artists are re-evaluating their concerns and redefining the paradigms of art practice. Materials are used as metaphors, the artist's awareness of materials encourage tactile mediations with the sheer presence of the material and work. This aspect involves the viewer in a direct confrontation with the installations in a theatrical space. This ability to modify space and environment outside the traditional practice of sculpture or painting has led to unprecedented explorations of materials and concepts. The first is an indigenous quest with culture specific material, using craft traditions and is also gender specific. The other is an eclectic, urban, and industrial fusion of global sensibilities. These materials have challenged aesthetic tastes, art markets and gallery pressures and are multi-dimensional in volume and concept.

The artists of Bangalore have become a part of every international art event, their participation in residencies, collaborative projects has put the city on the itinerary of international curators who make the city their next stop over.

Visual art in public spaces are places of the people and attempt to move beyond the hallowed spaces of the gallery. These individual projects by small groups have created a stir in the art scene. This undoubtedly makes visual art part of the public discourse, and hopefully engage the people in a dialogue of appreciation, to make visual art part of every day reality. I wish to claim that Bangalore has every potential to be the new art destination. It may not have group manifesto or an ideology to back its artists. But the eclectic sprit and the diversity of artists and their practice is an optimistic situation. Last year saw the elaborate organization of Bangalore Habba, an event that successfully occupied public space with corporate money. The Chitrakala Parishat made a democratic move to start Chitra santhe,another event that saw enthusiastic public participation. The reopening of Shankara as a space for art and crafts is another attempt to foster the arts. Another project with public transport cooperation gave the local artists a chance to speak about environment by painting images, text and installations on government buses. This novel enterprise was a good example of mobile images circulating in the city for a cause.

The local transcends the national to speak in a global voice. This diverse stimulating situation has put Bangalore at par with other metros in India/Asia. The cosmopolitan milieu of artists can be seen against the background of cyber economics and the city's global climb.

 

Suresh Jayaram