Something sexist,
politically incorrect but true to my anger:
Kankhowa Advises to the Contemporary Indian Artists
Here are
very sincere advises to the young
(including
aspiring to be young and quite old in age but still unfortunately discriminated
as young)
artists of
contemporary Indian art scenario.
Please note
that these advises are the only way for you that may lead you to success.
- Firstly: Try hard to make some visuals which are not visually good. Try to make some visuals which neither you nor any of your fellow person enjoy at the first sight. That is the only way to prove yourself as an intellectual. And that is important. There are many agencies in Delhi who will help you to be an intellectual, come to me, I’ll guide you to them. They will happily help you to stop your ‘visual journey’ and start your ‘intellectual journey’...
- If you are a female artist, before doing anything claim yourself a ‘feminist’. That is the safest way to mark a position at present. Now let me explain a bit. Feminism is the only “-ism” on earth which is unquestionably excepted by the ‘others’ if claimed by a woman. If you say yourself a Marxist, there will be people who will argue you with thousands of proofs to prove how you are not a ‘real’ Marxist. People will start counting your properties, they will keep an eye at where you eat in McDonald or KFC, with whom you go around in the weekends, and so on. If you claim you are an cubist, I have enough logic to prove you an expressionist. And you know quite well how dangerous to claim the self as modernist or post modernist. However, among all the “-ism”s Feminism is the safest guard for you, since you have a vagina and breasts. If you say yourself a feminist, I cannot put any counter argument, since I and most of the art connoisseurs/ gallerists/ critics/ historians are mere males. Moreover we also take some pleasure of promoting you, with a self pity that being a male how liberal we are.
- For female artists, my second advice is: don’t look for any other subjects, but make “yourself” as the subject of work. Usually many visually artists are weak in verbal or word based explanations. Word is not their domain, but visuals. That is fine, now a days they make no visuals, still it is fine.... So they usually get stuck where to start a conversation or a project proposal. But you can easily start, “I work with myself...”, and you see, you are granted. By the process you are taken for granted: if you are woman, and you are an artist, then you work on yourself. So take the advantage: work on your “BODY”, work on your “SELF”. Nothing sells in the market than your “BODY” and “SELF”. Put some pubic hair and paste with Fevicol on canvas, or directly mark on the canvas with your menstrual blood. You are the only one to give a different meaning to the color “red”. Red? Oh, yeah, it is red....
- Again for female artists: get stuck with your problems. Show how many problems in your life. If you are not getting sex in life that is a problem. If you are a free soul that is a problem. If you are an Indian Muslim that is a problem, if you are a Hindu, that is a problem. If you are with family, that is a problem. If you are alone that is a problem. If you masturbate that is a problem: if you do not do, that is also a problem. So, simply sell it. Sell the problems away.
- For male female both: don’t look at the Bougainvillea blooming across. Don’t look at Shimolu (shilmul), Palash in the spring. Never look at the evening dust. Never stare at the paddy field, how it changes color... Never dare to look at the everyday sunset: despite of being so casual, so daily and so monotonous how it brings new meaning to life. Never ever dare to look at it. Close your windows and doors. Do not look at the evening sky. Never go to a roadside tea stall, there is a life. Never take a city-bus, not even a metro. Lives are there. Do not sketch at the railway platforms, lives are there. Be concentrated, be precise, and be focused.
- Stop painting on canvas. Stop oil. Forget the smell of linseed. Simply forget water color. Throw out the clay. Throw out the stone. The wood. The zinc plate. All are outdated. Look for some new medium. And that medium can be anything. You are absolutely free to adopt a new medium which you never knew well, and your expected audiences also have no idea about... (I’m sorry. You do not have any expected audience. You have now only galleries and buyers, right?)
- Start some videos. Stop sculpting, sketching and painting. All are out-dated. You took two years in preparatory, four years in specialization, that is equal to five years. Then two more years in the name of Masters, that is equal to seven years. Now this seven year equation came down to six years. However, be it six years or seven years, you did enough struggle to achieve skill in a certain medium. Among you one is a very good oil-painter, one is wood-carver or may be one is good at lithography. Now simply fuck off everything. Start making some videos. Never try to realize that video (videography) is also a different medium, it also requires a long time to understand the materiality. Just do it. Because all contemporary great beings are doing it. You did your best oil painting in seven years, but believe in yourself, you can do your best video just in one month. That is also without having any idea about shutter speed, the RGB value, or the pixel aspect ratio. If you are not making a video you are simply not contemporary, not up-to-date, not an artist-- - as simple as that.
- Here comes performance art: this is even more awesome. You do not have any idea about voice modulation. You do not have any idea about characterization. You never examined your own body. You do not have any idea about space. You do not have any idea about the chemistry of time and space. Great! Do not fear, just jump into it, since this is the last option! Do not ever try to learn the Dotara a Baul singer plays in the railway compartments. Do not ever go to see Ramlila in Ayodhya. Do not go to NSD, do not go to any auditorium where theatre workers present something very ephemeral after months and years struggle. Never ever look at the roadside snake charmer or the magician. You are an artist, keep it in mind. You simply jump into performance. Don’t go for Aristotelian pyramid, don’t go for Shakespeare’s “aside”. Do not look at Chau masks, do not look at Nautanki, do not remember Bhawai. You simply do not look at Ankiya nat or Bhaona, Ojapali or Putola nach. Be truthful to your aims and goals, and struggle for that. There is only one thing you should follow and that is youtube... and go on in your journey. There are people waiting to promote you, to grant you to exhibit you...
- You are not from any art school? Sorry, we only count people’s bio-data. Not work. Though strategically we say the opposite.
- The last and most inevitable point: do just the opposite what Kankhowa says. Kankhowa himself does the same.
