There’s an ambitious exhibit of Asian American art at the Asia Society in New York, called “One Way or Another: Asian American Art Now.” 
The New York Times has a detailed review. Among the 21 artists whose works are being exhibited, at least two are desi, Saira Wasim and Chitra Ganesh.
Saira Wasim, who is from Lahore, trained in painting classical Mughal miniatures before moving to the U.S. recently. She was part of the “Karkhana” group that had its own show in New York not too long ago (see Manish’s post from last year). She does these great collage-like miniatures that often parody either political figures or scenes of cross-cultural misunderstanding.
Among the images of Wasim’s I’ve come across on the internet, my favorite so far is “Buzkashi” (Goat-grabbing), pictured above (click on the image to see the full picture). Here is how Wasim characterizes the painting on her website:
So this painting depicts ‘One Man’s show’ of Military Dictator of Pakistan, Perverz Musharaff sitting on a presidency throne and his imperialism is shown with four arms like Hindu god Shiv.
The basic constitutional structure of the country evolving around his regime; army generals are celebrating ‘martial law’ by dancing and wearing Hawaiian sandals.
The worldÂ’s seventh nuclear state in spite of her national debt over forty billion dollars and spending on defense budget over 3.5 billion dollars a year. Here goat is symbolized as innocent public. (link)
Wow. I’m surprised there hasn’t been an outcry about her work yet (maybe there has been one, and I missed it). Chitra Ganesh’s installation art sounds harder to visualize:
Installation art is pushed in different directions by several artists. In mural-size ink drawings, Chitra Ganesh subjects the female body to mutations, exaggerations and struggles worthy of Hindu deities and enlivened with beads, glitter and colored plastic. But routine female obsessions with hair, nails and eyelashes are also evoked. (link)
Again, I’m having trouble visualizing this in the abstract. An earlier exhibit by Chitra Ganesh at another gallery explored the Ramayana from a feminist point of view; it looks pretty interesting.
If anyone goes to this exhibit, I would be curious to hear your reviews. From the review in the Times, the non-desi Asian American art sounds quite interesting. Sadly, I won’t be heading to New York anytime soon, so I may miss it.
Khuda Gawah! That is an interesting piece. Religious considerations aside, I find it even a vaguely appropriate metaphor.
Should artists really be explaining their own works?
I’m referring to Wasim. I do like the painting, in any case.
The Singh sisters sometimes explain their political artwork. Maybe Wasim thinks she’s giving non-South Asians a fair chance to evaluate the work?
Amitabh,
Artists should be free to explain their own work. They may be (and often are) dead wrong, of course. Like Tolstoy, who said Anna Karenina was a moral lesson to those who sinned. Or Emily Bronte, who thought Wuthering Heights was a tale of ‘edification’. Artists can be like moms who think their budding rock star kid was born to be a doctor, you know?
Personally I find symbolist work like Wasim’s (as well as the symbolism in, is it Baroque or early Renaissance stuff? Lutes and pigeons and things) really tedious.
Dharma Queen:
I agree. Symbolism often seems to be a very roundabout way to say something quite obvious.
So true.
Symbolism aside, the pieces I saw on Wasim’s web site appeared very well done, even purely from a graphic standpoint. If they really are miniature miniatures, they’re surely worth viewing up close (real miniatures are mind- and eye-boggling in real life). If anyone in the restaurant task force — hello? anything happening on that front? — want to check out the Asia Society show and then do some culinary research, let me know.
Also, I like symbolism when it drives the artist to incorporate all kinds of cool little details, which Wasim seems to do. Also
is undoubtedly the case. You can never underestimate the cultural ignorance of your viewers, especially if they’re American and your work is informed by another culture.
I agree. Symbolism often seems to be a very roundabout way to say something quite obvious.
Word. I think it would have worked well if it were a cartoon.
In this painting’s case I think it probably helps that she explains it. For instance, if you read the full description, she mentions that A.Q. Khan is there at the bottom (I cropped him). That’s helpful because most people outside of Pakistan wouldn’t recognize A.Q. Khan’s face…
My wife took a look at it, and she actually didn’t recognize Musharraf! So yeah, explanations can help.
Chitra Ganesh’s stuff is great.
[Generalization follows]
Everyone has gut reactions to art–they love it or like it or hate it, etc.
Still sometimes, well structured explanations can bump everything up the hierarchy of like. And at that point you bond with the art, the artist, and the person doing the explaining. Got to say, i love those moments in life.
Pointing to self and waving at Nina P who said:
my first instinct on seeing that pose was to think of Hanuman not Lord Shiva.
Amardeep, I saw the show this morning. I have a review up on my site, which might interest Sepia Mutiny readers. Cheers.
Ms. Saira’s works clearly seem to be inspired by Indian, er. Hindu art. She might not acknowledge it, but I clearly see borrowings made from Hindu iconography.
Mea culpa. I do see she has mentioned it.
“So this painting depicts ‘One ManÂ’s showÂ’ of Military Dictator of Pakistan, Perverz Musharaff sitting on a presidency throne and his imperialism is shown with four arms like Hindu god Shiv.”
Apologies.
My first reaction when I saw Wasim’s piece was that I thought the SM staff photo shopped the original macaca’s profile to the head. Then I realized she was serious.
wgiia:
Yes, the gada on the shoulder definitely suggests Hanuman more than Shiv. On the other hand, Hanuman is an avatar of Shiv :).
The conflation of Shiv or Hanuman with Musharraf seems incongruous though. Shiv may superficially be the lord of destruction, but he is not diabolical, as (imho) the artist wants to suggest. Shiv is bhole nath, the innocent god, and only a reluctant destroyer. A comparison with Ravana/Krishna might have been more apt, if the artist wanted to point to Musharraf’s political games.
Good point. Maybe I’m missing something in Wasim’s interpretation, but Shiv destroys for a good purpose. The destruction is important for the renewal of life, and that doesn’t make sense if you’re a Pakistani lamenting over the loss of innocent Pakistani lives at the hands of the government. None of the major Hindu gods are malicious. They get angry and make mistakes, but those things are considered out of character. I wonder why she chose Hindu iconography in the first place. Is that in itself a political statement?
Remember, it’s a satirical portrait — she’s mocking Musharraf’s self-importance, hypocrisy, and obsequiousness. While Pervez is playing Shiva, his generals are hustling to make as much cash as they can. But it’s a rotten game…
Amardeep, The painting is commendable for the note of protest it strikes, but I think it reminds me a little too much of kitschy works. If this were to be reviewed as :
I felt that the use of Shaivite symbolism somewhat misplaced. Shiva is, by no means, some sort of a figurehead for a philosophy which encourages the death of other people in any way, shape or form. Shiva is, in fact, very much about harmony and balance. I think it is reasonable to say that her talents might be better appreciated if she placed this work in a slightly different genre.
To use Dharma Queen’s Tolstoy analogy, it would fair to say, I think, that the short stories that Tolstoy wrote towards the end of his life leave something to be desired. But, Tolstoy himself admitted that he did not intimately know the Russian peasants he set out to portray. He based his stories on Russian peasantry because of his political inclinations of the time. This is not to say that Tolstoy lacked talent. Of course not. His talents lay as a novelist, in a different genre, that’s all.
Similarly, politics is what informs this work of Wasim’s. She is certainly to be commended to speaking out against a venal, despotic regime. However, her painting struck me initially as somewhat crude. Besides this, she is perhaps not very familiar with at least some of the symbolism even when viewed in the South Asian context (and of course, she has every right to interpret even religious symbols the way she sees fit, not that I intend to abridge her right to do that). Perhaps her work would be better appreciated if she placed it as a cartoon, a genre better suited for this sort of symbolism and one where people might even be willing to give some of the “misplaced” symbolism a pass.
Don’t be dissin’ cartoons!
Nina, This is not intended to be a general “categorization” of cartoons somehow as nescessarily political, or derived versus paintings. I don’t think such a categorization would be fair. I think, however, that it is reasonable to say that cartoons, generally speaking, do not take themselves very seriously. They caricature, and they exaggerate. One can certainly take cartoons and turn them into high art, and I suppose that is where you are coming from. The question for me is not what paintings and cartoons try to be. The question is what is it that this painting aspires to be.
I just took a look again at Goya’s ‘The Shootings of May Third’, which just about everyone has seen – a man in front of a firing squad composed of French soldiers, arms raised, face despairing, wearing a brilliant white shirt with all the light in the piece centred upon it. The context is political, but the man’s posture, his expression, the composition of the work create an effect which transcends the politics of the time. I don’t think Wasim’s symbolist technique does the same. It generates no emotional reaction and I wonder if it can have enduring meaning.
I like Saira Wasim’s work. It’s great to see a fellow Pakistani voicing her political views openly through her art. Art is such a subjective thing. The very reasons that one person loves a piece may be why someone else can’t stand it at all. As far as including explainations, I think that’s kind of up to the artist. In the case of her work, I can see where there is so much hidden meaning that it actually adds to the experience by understanding a bit more about the symbolism. In short, I think this is interesting, creative work and I’m glad to see it!
On the “art tip” there’s also a show at the MFA in Boston starting next week called Domains of Wonder: Masterworks of Indian Painting.
MadGuru,
Interesting points. I think while liking a work of art may be subjective, its greatness or value are not subjective. For example, I don’t much like the Impressionists. But I wouldn’t dispute their value in the history of art – I sense that the impressionists were doing something important, different, and doing it very well, in a way that has universality. It just doesn’t appeal to me.
Similarly, I think you can ‘like’ a work of art (for a myriad of personal reasons – for example, one agrees with the artist’s political agenda, one likes the colours and composition the artist uses) and simultaneously know that it doesn’t have ‘greatness’ or enduring value.
I think “protest art” is judged by different standards. It’s not meant to be subtle. As per the politics behind this art, I would have to know something about Ms. Wasim before I made any judgement. Mushie is hated by both the Islamists, who view Hindu deities as infernal/satanic, and Pakistani progressives, who probably view them as “trickster” types. Not sure what camp Ms. Wasim falls into
Dharma Queen:
Suppose you came across an Impressionist painting before it was recognized as an important art movement; say you came across a Monet painting scouring the streets of Paris in the 1860s, would you still have known that he was doing something important and doing it well?
Sakshi.
Well I like to think so. I really don’t know. But whether I personally am capable of that kind of discernment is, I think, irrelevant to the distinction I was trying to draw between a purely personal ‘liking’ for a work of art and the universal human recognition of its greatness (granted, it sometimes takes a very long time for this recognition to materialize).
For instance, I know people who regularly say they dislike Shakespeare or Austen or Hardy. None of these people would dispute the greatness of these writers. There’s a difference between liking a work of art, and perceiving its power.
Suppose you came across an Impressionist painting before it was recognized as an important art movement; say you came across a Monet painting scouring the streets of Paris in the 1860s, would you still have known that he was doing something important and doing it well?
This is not addressed to me, but my take on this is that she is borrowing from established styles such as miniature painting, which have aesthetics of their own, and not establishing wholly new genre of her own. Her works do remind me of Mughal miniatures (which are lovely), but I didn’t see this piece of hers as very compelling. IMHO, she should remove her descriptive notes accompanying the pieces from her website as they tend to take away from her work.
I took a look at the rest of her work, and I do like it. There is certainly a sort of magic realism to her pieces. I liked a couple of her less representational works : this and this.
Great discussion. I was thinking of art that has a polemical purpose, and the piece that came to mind was Picasso’s Guernica, full of symbolism and protest and a scream of horror against the depredations of war and the slaughter of the innocents. Picasso said:
So I don’t think that political art full of symbolism and condemnation need nessecarily be one dimensional or limiting. The more I think of Saira Wasim’s painting here, the more I wonder of this.
From the Picasso quotation, I had wanted to highlight this line:
And it is the military caste which Saira Wasim expresses her abhorrence of too.
Red Snapper,
I love Guernica. I love it for the reason I love the Shootings of May 3rd – the palpable sense of the horrors of wars. You feel the horror. I don’t feel anything when I see the Musharraf piece. It is cold.
That said, the two works Another Desi Dude linked to are lovely, whimsical and have an almost Georgia O’Keefish sensuality to them too.
Dharma Queen, I reread my comment, and I feel that it may have come across as confrontational, or as aimed personally at you. I apologize: that was not my intention. I was trying to suggest a thought experiment, in the vein of ‘Suppose you were travelling at the speed of light, etc etc…’. I am sorry if it seemed that I was attacking your personal sense of aesthetics.
Addia:
That is a good point. Again, my remark was not addressed to Dharma Queen, but a general thought experiment, to point out what I feel is a necessary element of subjectivity in art. Feel free to weigh in. 🙂
Sakshi, no need to apologize – I think you asked a very important question.
My favorite megaupload files search engine is http://megauploadfiles.com it’s the most powerful and easy to use.
megaupload files provides relevant search results.