Show to prick conscience of those who have forgotten Bapuji

It was not going to be easy—interpreting Gandhi through art. Art historian Rahul Bhattacharya knew that when he set out to put together the art show, ‘Who has seen Gandhi?’

But Bhattacharya admits he was pleasantly surprised with the way artists from across the country responded to his concept note.
“I asked artist Deepak Tandon to be part of this show on Gandhi. I chose Tandon because there is a strong meditative quality to his work. He responded to my concept note (of relating his work to Gandhi and his spiritualism) by sending a photograph. I knew then that this is about to be an interesting show,” Bhattacharya told DNA.

‘Who has seen Gandhi?’  opens in Bangalore on October 2, Mahatma Gandhi’s 141st birth anniversary.

The idea of this art show is to initiate a dialogue on Gandhi, says Bhattacharya, the concept-anchor of the show. “There is an irony in the way the nation has forgotten Gandhi. Through this show, which is visual, I hope we will be able to create connect with Gandhi as well as his artistic ideology,” he says.

Gandhian values, be it nonviolence or secularism or selflessness or respect, have been understood in a certain way. Forgetting Gandhi means also forgetting all the ethics he always stood for, believes Bhattacharya. Moreover, an art show is an appropriate way to pay tribute to Gandhi because he was among the first public figures to engage with local artisans (in Shantiniketan and elsewhere).

For the viewer, too, the experience will be unique. The idea of this art show is to make the viewer initiate a dialogue in his mind. “This is not going to be an easy dialogue. It will be ambiguous,” he says.  Art can be more critical as against popular cinema, which is targeted at a mainstream audience. Art has many layers and the critique can lie in any of these layers, Bhattacharya says.

The show opens for a by-invitation-only preview viewing at Raj Bhavan on Gandhi Jayanthi, before it moves to Kynkyn Gallery. “There’s a reason why the governor is opening the show. This exhibition is also a very soft critique of the country’s political culture. The political class is largely responsible for forgetting Gandhi, his foreign policy, his ideals and everything else that has been marginalised. So I like to bring Gandhi to their doorstep. It is nice to be able to locate that “conscience keeper” in the Raj Bhavan. Even when we opened the Satyagraha show in 2005, we got the president of the country to inaugurate it. It is important for the political class to interact with Gandhi,” he says.

Bhattacharya’s own engagement with Gandhi, he says, began when he witnessed the 2002 Gujarat riots. “It was then that non-violence started making more and more sense to me. I met lots of artists who were using Gandhi as an icon to evoke certain metaphors.

I started to think of the role art would play in society. I started preparing for the Satyagraha show of 2005 with artists from India and South Africa,” he says. He found the way South African artists respond to Gandhi “quite amazing”. It also opened his eyes to the fact that Gandhi is slowly being forgotten in his home country, as youngsters evince little interest in the man he was or his philosophy. “Clearly, we are forgetting him,” Bhattacharya says.

About the show’s title, he says: “I used it as a metaphor for the idea that we are forgetting Gandhi. It is also to awaken the idea of physically seeing the man who died so soon after India won independence. The title is also rather open-ended, open to the interpretation of the viewer,” explains Bhattacharya.