| INTERVIEW - Anjolie Ela Menon laments art becoming an asset Fri Apr 20, 2007 1:11 PM IST By Palash Kumar NEW DELHI (Reuters Life!) - Indian contemporary art is finally receiving the global recognition it deserves, but it should be enjoyed and not hoarded as an investment, says celebrated figurative painter Anjolie Ela Menon. Menon, who started painting at the age of 12, was championed at an early age by renowned painter M.F. Husain. One of her first works was a nude self-portrait as a teenager. Her five-decade journey from early Byzantine influences to the melancholy of the human form, has been replete with awards. Menon's works sell for anything between $150,000 and $200,000. Deeply moved by the 2002 religious riots in Gujarat, she put its horrors on canvas. Menon, recently conferred with France's Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters award, spoke to Reuters: Q: Is it a very good time for the Indian art market? A: It has been a very good time. There is a certain globalisation and recognition that Indian contemporary art exists. There are over 200,000 painters in this country, working and painting and sculpting, and yet there were lots of people who had no idea that even there was any contemporary art in India. On the other hand, art is now being seen as an investment. Some of the buying that's going on is being just driven by the investors and funds. Big funds are driving the market. Q: Is that something you regret? A: I feel sad that a lot of our paintings are just being bought, wrapped and stacked. They are not being hung. That's very hurtful to an artist's ego. There's something which you put your soul into and it is now just being used as a commodity. Q: What were your early inspirations? A: I have been always very inspired by my immediate environment. I don't think it requires very great events to be inspired. You never know where and when inspiration will come. It's a daily surprise to all artists and a daily anxiety as well because one wonders will inspiration come today? Q: What is an Anjolie Ela Menon work? A: There is a kind of muted colouration associated with my work and the very ordinary things of daily use and daily sights -- something that catches your eye, something which you see in a moving train, in a window. Q: Have you mostly painted the female form? A: No. It was just that those models at a certain age were certainly more available than men but there are as many men in my works. For instance, the bearded man is a figure that lies somewhere between Jesus Christ and my husband who is bearded. Q: You never faced any restrictions? A: No, never. There was a painting called 'Raising the Kundalini'. There's this meditating man and I have depicted the Kundalini, or life force, rising up in his spine with series of little cameos of various Hindu gods and goddesses. Apparently, that painting was shown at an exhibition in Mumbai and Bal Thackeray stormed in and was going to get his goons to come and destroy but I think the gallery responded in time. That was the only time. Q: Gujarat did inspire you? A: I did paint a few paintings. There was one painting called 'Naroda Patia', which was of a woman lying dead and her child trying to wake her. There is a painting of a man with a notice around his neck trying to trace a missing child. I think that has meaning even today. | |
| © Reuters 2007. |
No comments:
Post a Comment