[Reader-list] [Announcements] Performance 'Palestine' : 4th of March: MF Hussain ART Gallery

[Rakesh Iyer]

Dear Shuddha (and all)

I think this point about whether politics and art can be separate, is a
question which may not have been necessarily been there even among the
creators of the art piece itself.

Politics, as I see it, is basically influencing people for a common cause.
(Incidentally, I am doing the same by asking people to believe that there
could be chances of 'a-political' art).

Art, on the other hand, could be defined as human effort to imitate,
supplement, alter, or counteract the work of nature.* *

Now whether an act of art is necessarily created to influence people, or it
is just created for one's own sake, is something one can't be sure of. For
example, both the religious conservatives and liberals in India talk about
Khajuraho. Now, Khajuraho, as it was made then, may have had such
sculptures, neither as what conservatives believe to be sacred deities, nor
to just portray sexuality as some great liberals claim. (Here, the
conservatives refer to the Sangh Parivar and their like, and the liberals
are basically the TV-pink chaddi-others gang.....). But who knows with what
intention did the laborers make it? May be some king ordered and they were
made exactly in the same way, in case of which it was simply a job.

So, it's not art which is necessarily political. But yes, the way one looks
at art can certainly make it political.

Regards

Rakesh