ARTISTES STAGE PROTEST, DECRY GOVT NEGLECT OF STATE ARTS

Hundreds of artists from across Rajasthan on Thursday staged a protest at the Jawahar Kala Kendra to highlight the neglect of state’s art forms and artists by the management of art centre.

As a protest, a skit--a satire on the artists’ concern over the changes made in the centre’s constitution—was staged by Himanshu Jhankal and tamasha --traditional song and ballet-exponent Dileep Bhatt.

Ranvir Sinh, national president of the Indian People Theatre Association, said the original constitution of art centre has been unlawfully altered to include unqualified members.

The original clause for a general council with head of three branches--music, art and literature--and national and international scholars of eight art disciplines as its members has been entirely quashed, he said.

The new governing council is full of industrialists apart from a couple of artists, he said, adding that even the working committee has people who are from the creative field, Sinh said.

The artists voiced concern over the tampering with the original architecture of centre, and the iconic work of Charles Correa.

“The building is visited by architecture students from across the world, has surprisingly been fitted with glass and plastic,” said Amit Kalla, painter and Gyanpeeth awardee.

“Out of the four galleries, one has been converted into a glitzy showroom while the other three are not accessible to local artists,” he said. HTC