[Reader-list] Is painting a currency note which can not be forged unless you act illegally?

Tue Jan 27 19:35:37 IST 2009

Dear Inder Salim

The TOI and other news reports certainly have raised doubts but none has declared it as a "fake encounter".  

Dont you think it is irresponsible for any serious commentator to make a declaration of it being a "fake encounter" on the basis of what you have described as "the way it was
carried out, it looks fake".

No I do not expect fake encounter from the State. Nor do I expect or find acceptable "custodial deaths". That it happens is another thing altogether which needs to be rectified and stopped (in any country). Your statement that it is a "part of" the system of governance in India is ridiculous. The exceptions cannot be stretched into being called the norm.

In any case, it certainly does does not mean that any such incident is automatically declared as being a "fake encounter" or a "custodial death" on the basis of the precedence of some examples and without confirmation from properly evidenced investigation.

This particular incident may or may not be a "fake encounter" but declaring it as being so on the basis of  "loopholes" and "suspicions" from news reports seems to be frivolous at the least and of devious intent at it's worst.

As regards "reflecting on other finer points about fake/original", I am not accomplished enough to participate in such highly intellectual academic discussions. 

Kshmendra 

--- On Tue, 1/27/09, indersalim <indersalim at gmail.com> wrote:

From: indersalim <indersalim at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Is painting a currency note which can not be forged unless you act illegally?
To: "reader-list" <reader-list at sarai.net>
Date: Tuesday, January 27, 2009, 6:50 PM

dear Kshmendra
thanks
my source of information is Times of India newspaper, the way it was
carried out, it looks fake,
but why dont we expect a fake encounter from the State ?
is not custodial death a well known feature in our system of
governance, and it is almost acceptable in our societal discourse.

that is that, but i would really love to hear you reflecting on other
finer points about fake/original

regards and love
is

On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 2:15 PM, Kshmendra Kaul <kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com>
wrote:
> Dear Inder Salim
>
> You wrote:
>
> """"" Read today's fake encounter which
marked two dead bodies as two
> terrorists."""""
>
> Would you please clarify which "encounter" have you written
about and on
> what basis you have declared it to be a "fake encounter".
>
> Kshmendra
>
> --- On Tue, 1/27/09, indersalim <indersalim at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> From: indersalim <indersalim at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Is painting a currency note which can not be
> forged unless you act illegally?
> To: "reader-list" <reader-list at sarai.net>
> Date: Tuesday, January 27, 2009, 1:05 AM
>
> Dear Taha,
>
> Your very interesting response is  certainly my essay's second part. I
> will try write its third part. I wish there are many more reflection
> on the subject. The subject ' fake/original' is such that we can
> always safely conclude by saying ' to be concluded…'
>
> Earlier, this little essay-piece was triggered by Raza's serious
> reaction to his own fakes. But obviously I can not simply stop at
> criticizing him for his lack of humour, but we rightly need to march
> ahead and touch the deeper issues of identity etc. Today on 26th of
> Jan. in TOI we have an interview by poet-bureaucrat Ashok Vajpayee who
> also seemed quite bothered by collector's dilemmas, which
> intellectually I again see some sort of short-sightedness.  What
> amuses me most in all this that the victim artists themselves fail to
> realize their own understanding of modern art, which is that art
> changes, even after the brush stops, even after the colours dry on the
> surface, even after the same set of eyes see it again, even after the
> same audience likes and then dislikes it…
>
>  I believe, a time gap of 60 years is enough to make the artists to
> see her/his own works in a changed form. If not, I only see
> stagnation. We have to move ahead of Dada and Duchamp but I guess it
> is futile to continue with a Picasso etc.  What is that which makes
> them dismiss the forgery in the first place: if not the money factor ?
>
> But wait; they are perhaps genuinely worried, because they are still
> on the same old track of creativity, which is creative indeed, but
> something, smog like, has crept into "all the pores" of that
> creativity, explicitly, which  we call : conceptual.
> Radical thought is a perpetual flux of expression in material and Life
> directly.
>
> Unlike in the first part, where I took pains and found Jean
> Baudrillard's quotes sufficiently describing the collectors
> limitations, but  now, I guess, we ought to intuitively enter  the
> word 'conceptualism'.
>
> Meanwhile, can we suggest  to represent ourselves with an image of say
> Dodo, or about to go extinct species such as Tiger, tied around our
> necks in our National Identity Cards? Will that be too heavy a weight
> for the Nationhood to bear? Do we need to realize intensely that
> things have shifted radically ?  The Nation State needs a lie to
> sustain itself. Even legendry post-Kalinga King Ashoka required some
> violence to sustain his hold on power. It is inevitable. Read today's
> fake encounter which marked two dead bodies as two terrorists. Now
> people know why we need 26th of Jan. and so Identity cards as well. I
> am interested in something which takes a departure from that line of
> identity which is too obvious, predictable.
>
> Perhaps, the notions of identities have shifted for the younger
> generation, and do this younger lot blindly let them impose their ways
> of identity on the rest. Do we need to join their anguish against the
> fakes, even when we don't paint.  I do paint, as a true amateur, that
> is entirely different from what Raza and co. are into, but yes,
> 'photography' I believe, was free from this ' faking
fear'. So
> I do,
> photographs, and would be amused if they are duplicated into anything
> else. I have no fears on that account, but I have my own fears.
>
> Yes, there are more bigger traps in the photography, but to grapple
> with those, do we need to get rid of those ghosts who are by now
> exposed?  The mystery ghosts of Indian Modern art are on sale, and I
> have not no interest to buy one, even when I had such a huge money to
> invest, but  I do look at them comically, which is not ordinary. They
> amuse me, they entertain me, but  I don't see they are radical enough
> to unnerve the bigger ghosts of our existing times,  which are much
> darker in nature.
>
> If we truly believe "every body is an artist" then we know how
> definitions don't work, and we also need to know why there is some
> sincere desire in people to identify themselves with something where
> money was a minor player, but their inner respective being was ' the
> hero . I am not certainly talking about some 'collective
> consciousness', whatever that means, but something which is
> 'singular'
> in nature.  I usually write ' singular-i-tease' whenever we talk
about
> that inner' people's desire', which rips ( Derrida ) anything,
both
> sacred and profane. People do it, in their own beautiful ways.
>
> Please have a look at my second version of INDER SALIM poster, which
> has the very name indersalim ( sound )  written in sausages 'of beef
> and pork'.  So, difficult to devour and relish, for those who are hard
> core believers of  their respective identities: Hindu and Muslim.
> http://sheisalivingchild.blogspot.com ( image in the box )
>
> In practice, I believe, the difference between original and fake is
> just a temporary one.  I am talking about  how ' our ways of
living'
> are road rolling that earlier difference of identity which we held
> dearly near our hearts. Gizmos and technologies are rendering that
> difference into a mythical one. There is a profound regret, but
> perhaps, we don't have a way to go back to the past, but we have all
> the reason to see faults with modernity. Something else is happening
> right now. I have certainly no big expression to talk about that, but
> see, what a chaos we are in. So what is hidden but there, is perhaps
> vital for our ongoing ways of living.
>
> The style of an artist  has indeed collapsed as something lasting. The
> National identity too has a limited function in that sense. The word '
> conceptual' on the other hand transcends the boarder, and the style at
> the same time.  It outwits the market oriented collector, and
> simultaneously questions the corporate cultured monster's hidden
> sprawl under the national tricolour. Unfortunately, the masses are
> helpless, but they deserve better than Nation merely as style, and a
> situation where artists are a rare commodity, like a Mercedes car
> which they only look at from a distance, for some moon like desire in
> their eyes. ( see, how MF Hussain, openly exhibits his hobby of
> collecting expensive cars in Dubai )
> 	
> At national level, particularly in North India we have a strong
> difference which is based on 1947, and Partition. Both, the post
> colonial identity and Hindu Muslim difference is working towards the
> formation of National Identity.  Here, again ' our ways of living are
> rendering that difference into insignificance.  A time will come when
> we don't need fear  to from this lack, of not being a Nationalist;
> which does not mean we need to be anti-nationalist for that, but
> something which is liberating, truly  for our inner spiritual pursuits
> at the core.
>
> Right now we don't have a duplicate to a Mulla ji or a Brahmin ji who
> performs an  original and obviously devastate millions of Indians with
> his fear mechanism. They even sabotage the strong structures of
> Democracy with their deep psychological reaches into the minds of
> people. They themselves carry a ritual flag in the name of God. They
> rob people and give power to God.   They are intimately seated next to
> nation state which robs people to enrich itself.  They were never
> originals in their original function in our society . But they had a
> style which they sell like our modern masters.  This is where 'the
> Nation', if dependant on that style ' of  partition and post
colonial
> identity' then it performs  as collector which is "impoverished
and
> inhuman ".
>
> About 'idiocy' of our times:  that we are drowned by the
photocopies
> of the photocopies of the photocopies of the photocopies. Where is the
> original Monalisa stands today, if we were burn all millions and
> billions of photocopies of Monalisa ?
>
> Is anybody hearing, Raza  who is too anguished about fakes of his
originals.
>
> Nation is on the thorn, Some one is hungry at Seven. Artist is worried
> about originals.
> Muse is in her Heaven. All is right with the world
>
> With love and regards
> Inder salims
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 5:21 PM, Taha Mehmood
> <2tahamehmood at googlemail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Dear Inder,
>>
>> Thank you for posting a wonderful essay. I look forward to the second
> part.
>>
>> I think this essay reflects a lot of issues, questions and dilemmas
that I
> am grappling for last four years regarding the not so clear notion of
> identity.
>>
>> The similarities of debate in the art world, regarding fake and the
> original, seemingly creative solutions like  Ela Menon's to deposit
her
> thumbprint on her work, and the anxiety to identify the-one-as-the-one,
are
> not
> that dissimilar, it seems to the current neurosis of many a nation state
to
> introduce national identity cards.
>>
>> It was interesting to note how the writer of this essay choose
> Rosset's words to argue,  "The  real is not threatened by its
double
> today it is threatened by its very idiocy". I am curious what
Rosset's
> take would be on the crucial issue of national citizenship because
> essentially
> it is about identifying the real from the fake.
>>
>> To issue a national identity card, any state would have to act as a
> collector of personal and financial information. Of collectors he states,
> 'collectors, for the part, invariably have something impoverished and
> inhuman about  them'. Will he harbour the same opinoin for a nation
state as
> a collector too?
>>
>> I wonder what prompted him to use such a strong language. As a reader
one
> does not really understand why he articulates the act of collection as
> impoverished and inhuman.
>>
>> If for a moment we leave the sensitive nature of politics around the
> imagination of a nation state and talk purely in terms of politics around
> the
> art world, I would be happy to know your views in so far as the debate
> around
> the fake and original is concerned.
>>
>> As the essay suggests, one of the reasons for the existence of this
> anxiety seems to be money, the other seems to be ownership or maybe
> authorship.
>>
>> As an artist and a practitioner of an art form, to what extent, you
think
> Inder, that one could formulate ideas about fake and original.
>>
>> Warm regards
>>
>> Taha
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
>
> http://indersalim.livejournal.com
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