The ongoing exhibition at IGNCA evaluates modern and contemporary art through the medium of drawing
Drawing as a visual art form has several meanings. It can be a form of communication, a sign, a plan, a design, a map or a mark on the surface. Drawing is regarded as an essential part of training for any artist whether they are painters, sculptors or designers. It is a basic tool for conceiving and preparing to make a work. But a drawing can also stand as the final art work. In recent years, the methods and meanings of drawing have been rapidly transforming as Indian artists continue to participate in the global circuit of exhibitions, biennales and art fairs as well as residencies and site-specific projects. The ongoing mega show titled Drawing 2014: Seven Decades of Indian Drawing, trace the journey of sketches in Indian art while highlighting the work of prominent artists. The exhibition at Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts (IGNCA) celebrates the 25th anniversary of Gallery Espace.
The exhibition features works by more than 100 artists from India and works dating from 1947 to the present in which drawing is presented as a broad and inclusive practice. Along with works on single sheets of paper, there are artists’ books, studies for other projects, multiples, laser drawings, animation and more. This breadth allows curators and viewers to understand how an academic practice moves between the pedagogic and the conceptual realms and between established and experimental ways of working.
“Drawing 2014 is a curatorial project that explores and showcases the visually exciting and historically-rich practice of drawing in India over the last 67 years. The project also seeks to create a pedagogic space, which holds the possibility for theorising an important but under-studied practice in post-Independence art making. It also is engaged with the prospect of creating a platform where the debate over categories such as ‘modern,’ ‘contemporary,’ ‘tribal’ or ‘handmade’ are contextualised in the context of viewing and thinking,” says the curator Annapurna Garimella.
Over the last 2,000 years, drawings were seen in Jain manuscripts and Ajanta murals. During the nationalist period, artists attributed ideological power to various ways of drawing. For example, Jamini Roy, student of Abanindranath Tagore, was one of the most prominent artists of pre-Independence India. He drew bold, sharp yet voluptuous forms in continuous lines that invoked the contours of pottery and the vernacular paintings of bazaar. For him, this way of rendering the image allowed him to demonstrate his allegiance to rural life and aesthetics. The opening of art schools during the British Raj and the nationalist response to colonial art education led eventually to the creation of an Indian modernism that entered a dialogue with European modernism. Rabindranath Tagore, for example, requested the Bauhaus in Germany to send an exhibition to India, which in 1922 became the first contemporary European art exhibition to visit the country. The idea of paintings without figuration or a specific subject appeared in local art culture after this exhibition. Artists started drawing non-mythological subjects for which new ways of seeing and making forms had to be learned. Indian modernism began the work of creating a relationship between Europe avant-garde visual vocabularies and pre-modern Indian art. The drawings and paintings of Goan artist FN Souza indicate the importance of Impressionism, Fauvism, and Cubism as well as the erotic sculpture of Khajuraho and folk art. He first rejected his colonial education and went on to found the Bombay-based Progressive Artists’ Group in 1947. Because of his Portuguese passport, he was able to travel to Europe where he visited many galleries and attended drawing classes. He and other artists of this period used drawing as a base on which to construct their painting; drawings also were looked at or used as scribbles or something spontaneous and unconscious.
“The exhibition, which spans a broad expanse of time, seeks to evaluate modern and contemporary art through the medium of drawing. It is to perceive how Indian artists have adopted and experimented with ideas and materials which are brought from elsewhere. It also questions about art practices. What is Indian art todayIJ What are the possibilities that drawing offersIJ How does an artist perceive drawing as a work of art and how does he or she distinguish drawing from any other work of artIJ By asking such questions, the exhibition seeks to document, analyse and celebrate several art historically distinct Indian approaches to drawing,” adds Garimella.