Exhibitions to stay longer
One of the biggest highlights of this season is that finally organisers and gallerists have woken up to the fact that exhibitions can’t and shouldn’t be a one week or a three- day affair
The art season is drawing to a close and the one trend that I have wanted to happen has finally taken place. To my mind, it is one of the biggest highlights of this season is that finally organisers and gallerists have woken up to the fact that exhibitions can’t and shouldn’t be a one week or a three- day affair. All those galleries who have their own spaces, have made it a point to have exhibitions on for three weeks to a month and longer if possible.
I have been crying myself hoarse that it takes such a long time ( even up to three years) to gather enough works for a show if it is a solo or in the case of sculptures even longer, so having it on merely for a week is such a disservice to all the effort that artists and gallerists put in towards it. Few outside the trade realise the amount it takes to put up a show.
The journey begins well before an artist even starts trying to put up a show. When endless rounds of shoe wearing out exercises of making even more never- ending rounds of commercial galleries come to naught, they decide to somehow gather the money and rent a gallery to exhibit their works. Here they have break their heads against even bigger walls of the so- called white cube. If one were to believe the directors of the even available- for- rent galleries, the galleries are not available till at least 2050!
While galleries like Jehangir in Mumbai have official waiting lists of four to five years. When you apply almost four years before you get the gallery, your dates are confirmed and you can be certain that you have a gallery to show in. The Lalit Kala Akademi galleries across the country too have a more or less similar system. Except since these a quasi government organisations, they have to keep a provision in case the government Department of Culture has a show, bookings can be cancelled.
I am told the Visual Arts Gallery in the India Habitat Centre New Delhi despite been built on government land has very obtuse system of giving out the gallery. While I have never applied there, the ones who have, tell me that it is not all above water.
While genuine applicants have an endless wait, the loophole of “against cancellation” clause is an oft abused one for it allows room to play favourites. So you can imagine what a hurdle race it is to get a gallery.
I wonder why there can’t be more transparency in this system. If they genuinely have decided for four to five years in advance, why can’t the lists be put up on the net? Even the against cancellation list can be uploaded just as easily. It is indeed pitiable to see young junior artists run from pillar to post trying to get galleries.
Once all goes well and gallery Gods have smiled, then comes the creation of works, getting them framed, rigmarole of getting a sensible critic to write a critique in the catalogue, then finding money to print the catalogue, inviting people to come for the opening, getting the media to cover it, designing the placements, maybe even hire a curator and worst of the lot – getting a buyer to buy some works so as to break even or even make it viable to create more art! If you are not half dead by now, or worse, demoralised, then just sit in the gallery from morning till evening waiting for Godot and I promise you will be fully finished! After all this when galleries ask artists to put up shows for two, three, four days, who will not feel like murdering them?
All over the Western world, art exhibitions are planned well in advance, the dates are advertised and communicated to several departments like tourism and the shows run for almost three months. The exhibitions are an important part of the tourists’ and art lovers’ calendar and all over Europe audiences make it a point to travel just to see specific shows.
In India, few shows are either of that caliber and even fewer make an effort to visit from out station.
The only show that people came from various parts of the country to see that I recall in the last few years, were the Nizam jewels shown at the National Museum in New Delhi. I still vividly recall many of the jewels including the Jacob diamond, the Navratan necklace and the blue sapphire necklace. Women and their propensity for jewels many of you will say but really the show was so well designed that it added an extra sheen to the already stunning collection.
The point I am trying to make is when all in the art world know the gargantuan effort required to put up a show, why can’t it run for longer to enable wider audiences to see it. Admittedly not all shows deserve it, but the ones that do deserve the gestation period, need to be shared and savoured for longer.