tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7024210672199702325.post1403708398973520740..comments2024-03-28T15:07:22.673+05:30Comments on Shoot First, Mumble Later: Sheetal Gattani and Jitish KallatGirish Shahanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16877402074547726173noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7024210672199702325.post-27999949789971079362009-02-09T10:39:00.000+05:302009-02-09T10:39:00.000+05:30Hi Jitish,Thanks a lot for your comment, and kind ...Hi Jitish,<BR/>Thanks a lot for your comment, and kind words. I take your point about the specificity, or lack thereof, of your image. It narrows the field of interpretation too much to ask, as I did, for insight into 26 / 11. Just as Guernica is not specifically about the bombing of the Basque town, your painting generalises from the experience of the reception to the Bombay terror attacks.<BR/>So let me modify my argument, and make it more general. In my opinion (stressing that last word) the central composite image you used was not interesting enough to provide an insight into the public reception of violence. And I don't mean insight in any analytical or theoretical way, but in ways that are particular to art.<BR/>The use of received material is always a fraught enterprise, because the artist needs to take something from the public domain and energise it anew, for which a very incisive concept is required. I didn't see that in your large canvas, though it's possible I missed something.<BR/>To provide an example where such re-energising worked works, I'd cite your own pieces that use famous speeches from Nehru and Vivekananda. The burning of the letters and the distorting mirror are formal means to impel a meditation on the passing of time and ideals. They don't change our opinions -- that's not what art is about -- but they alter our perspective, add a layer to our understanding of the legacies of those figures in relation to the current state of the world. The 9/11 connection between Vivekananda's speech and the World Trade Centre attacks provides a temporal / coincidental reinforcing of the thematic issues you are concerned with.<BR/>Now to your second point, that of art historical reference: here I am convinced I'm on firm ground. It is absolutely true that the cited work becomes a kind of rival to the work doing the citing. That's why I felt that Reena's pieces connecting with the Taj didn't succeed (apologies for the double-whammy!): if you refer without irony to the most gorgeous building in the world, you'd better produce something spectacular, or else viewers whose minds are suddenly filled with wonderful memories of the Taj are bound to find the work in front of them wanting.<BR/>Picasso himself always realised there was an element of competition in reference. By reworking Manet, Ingres or Velazquez, he was arguing he deserved a place on par with them. You have not reworked Guernica in the same way, so the level of competition is at a remove, but it hasn't disappeared.<BR/>Just as scale is not merely a matter of painting bigger, but of proving your imagination is powerful enough to animate that space, successful citation involves proving your work is worthy of that reference. If an artist manages to pass the hurdle, the reference work gets co-opted, stops being an obstacle and starts working in the artist's favour.Girish Shahanehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16877402074547726173noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7024210672199702325.post-4198852638992019872009-02-09T09:14:00.000+05:302009-02-09T09:14:00.000+05:30Dear Girish,Let me Salute you first, Shoot or Mumb...Dear Girish,<BR/><BR/>Let me Salute you first, Shoot or Mumble later.<BR/>Congratulations on an enterprise carried out with utter honesty; a commodity which is in short supply when it comes to discussions within the art-world. <BR/>I was thrilled to see your blog.<BR/><BR/>While I humbly accept your opinion on the formal construction of the picture, it may be useful to alert you about a few fundamental issues. No art is ever in competition with its subject; nor does an art historical reference symbolically alluded to by an artist ever becomes the rival of the work within which it is cited. That may be a very unproductive and dangerous way to look at the role of the ‘citation index’ within art or any other form of cerebral endeavour.<BR/><BR/>An art work either succeeds or fails; it can never be victorious as it is never caught in a contest.<BR/><BR/>Another fundamental issue might be the assumption that this piece is a singular direct response to the painful memory of 26/11. This is nowhere stated in the material handed out nor was it ever mentioned by me during our conversation. I think riding on that assumption was also your anticipation of a new insight or perspective on 26/11; that was never my agenda. <BR/><BR/>Finally a line about the scale: the choice of the ‘Guernica’ was about finding a symbolic scale for the amplification of contemporary anxiety; to pick <BR/>a fleeting newspaper image and stretch it to the dimensions of the historical picture. <BR/><BR/>A parting mumble: please keep up the blog.<BR/><BR/>Love,<BR/>JitishAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com