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A call for beauty
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Towards Ananda makes a plea to incorporate aesthetic principles into everyday life
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THE DILEMMA Do we return to our vibrant traditions or move towards art that has become an instrument for investment?
In one of the chapters (Integration and Imagined Directions) of his book, Towards Ananda: Rethinking Indian Art and Aesthetics Shakti Maira writes: "The challenge for us in India is to remember that we are neither wholly traditional nor modern; we are a mix of both. The choices facing Indian artists are not a return to our traditions or to move forward toward modernity. The exciting and challenging choice is to do something else: to integrate both."
Maira's book was released recently at Oxford Bookstore by Jerry Rao, CEO & Chairman, Mphasis who felt that books like Towards Ananda (Penguin/Viking, 290 pages, Rs. 395) are important at a time when Indian art followed seemingly `paradoxical' trajectories — one, which was vibrant and fulfilling; the other, tasteless and even vulgar.
In his interaction with the audience, Maira echoed some of the issues raised in the book — like the current predicament of the visual arts in India with the dark shadow of colonisation on traditional art; narrow and irrelevant art education in schools and art colleges; art becoming part of urban conspicuous consumption and an instrument of investment; and so on. His dismay with the market-led view of creativity, the "show-off" aspects of art, and the "return-on-investment" syndrome was apparent. "When my book was recently released in Mumbai, people were more interested in discussing the boom in art market than aesthetics of contemporary Indian art!"
Wondering whether we were increasingly becoming "aesthetically stunted," Maira lamented the seemingly "great amnesia about our own aesthetic culture. Art was always seen as an experience in India (in contrast to the West, which viewed it as an object)," he explained, highlighting the importance of universal aesthetic values of harmony, balance, proportionality, rhythm, vitality and beauty as powerful catalysts in making better art and building better societies. "In Indian culture, aesthetic delight or ananda has been both the source and the purpose of the arts."
Having spent 15 years in the U.S. where he was involved in the corporate world, Maira returned to India in 2001. "While I lived in the West, I often spoke of the visual intelligence in Indian culture," he says. "Yet in contemporary India, much of this aesthetic wisdom is disappearing."
A well-known artist and sculptor himself, Maira says: "I am what the art trade calls a `self-taught' artist." Maira has held a number of solo shows in India, U.S. and Europe. "My art has often been considered spiritual, though I am an atheist and an irreligious person and am wary of all forms of excessive spirituality and the art associated with them," he says while admitting to a strong affinity with Buddhism, "Which has given me a meditation practice and a way of looking at life."
Maira's interest in children's education and development through art has led him to conduct numerous workshops in schools in the U.S. and India. In 2005 he helped organise the Learning through the Arts in Asia symposium in New Delhi, and was subsequently invited by UNESCO to prepare the Asian vision statement for Arts in Education: Learning through the Arts.
ATHREYA
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