STREET ART – A CONTEXTUAL PERSPECTIVE WITHIN CONTEMPORARY
URBAN DESIGN PLANNING AND ITS ISSUES
By
Narendra Raghunath
narendraraghunath@gmail.com
For the last few
years, creative painting in urban public spaces in India has received a
newfound acceptability. There are many discourses and narratives attached to
this process of artistic reinvention in public spaces. For some it is a process
of bringing sanity to the clutter of public space, for some it is
beautification of the space and for others it is a process of occupying public
space with art. This paper explores this seen and unseen connection of
aesthetics of form and space as defined in our urban society.
Universalisation of urban imaginations and idea of
beauty in the other:
In 2010, the
original proponent of Sabarmati riverside project, Ar. Bernard Kohn came back
to Cept University and conducted a workshop with students and raised many
questions about the present model of re-claiming riverbeds as real estate .
Till that point of time, the narrative around the city was: the riverside
project will turn the city of Ahmedabad into another Venice– a city of luxury,
celebration and water ways. Although half the population of the city had never
heard of Venice, the story was sold convincingly and people eagerly awaited its
completion. They were not concerned about the large-scale human displacements
and environmental violence wrought by such flawed infrastructure projects,
where the natural path of a river is resized for the development of realty. I
am not getting into any sociological or environmental impact assessment of this
specific project or for that matter of any such project, but my interest lies
in the construction of beauty, its binary and narrative that are firming up our
idea of urban beauty and visual culture.
If one analyses
the above story, perhaps the story of every urban imagination about the idea of
development, one will find the following four arguments are over emphasised in
this construction of urban aesthetics
1. Existence of a
superior other and Inferior self
2. Possibility of
transformation
3. Necessity of
change
4. Agency of
change
Let us understand
these arguments in a little detail
Existence of a superior other and inferior self or
present:
In our life one is told that the essential requirement
for the premise of improvement is always have to be a contempt for the present
or at least eagerness for more. Either
way, it reminds us of the inadequacy of our present. Historically,
advertisement and communications industry have been using this technique for a
very long time. Perhaps we may be able to find the antecedents of this argument
in our age old religious narratives of heaven and hell. This binary of good and
bad and less and more may be an evolutionary outcome of human mind that is required
to live in the evidence of time: the past, present and future and its
manifestations in a material world.
Good and bad can
reflect only a quality and not necessarily quantifiable material evidence, but
the binary of less and more often requires a quantifiable evidence of material
manifestation. In our priority for good or bad and less or more, this dichotomy
of complementary existence of Identities, between quantity of material evidence
and quality of virtue develops a self-doubt of superiority or inferiority in
individuals.
Value of ethics,
morality and its natural subset aesthetics play a big role in this flux of
value judgments. In other words the idea of beauty in human life remains a
value judgment of quality and quantity. This has been the case of human society
from time immemorial. All our functional systems in society, be it nation,
state, community, religion, business or economy, they all operate in this area
of self-doubt. They confirm the virtue of superiority of good and more above in
human life as against inferior bad and less positions.
From the
fundamental economic unit- money that derives its value from the principles of
demand and supply to the ideas of hope, development, expansion, construction ,
relationships, faith so on and so forth, one will find the evidence of this
idea of inferior and superior being operationalized everywhere. We will find
this binary shaping up the body of argument or position and perhaps even in the
resistance or rejection of one or all of the above . Take for instance the
cases of religion or spirituality or universalization or vernacular, one finds
the value judgment of appropriateness is derived from this binary of superior
or inferior.
Necessity for change:
Strangely even as
the inferior inherently identified with our existence, the superior is always
find a construct outside our identities, for example, the Christian construct of man as a born
sinner and the supreme God of purity. Problematically this confirmation of an
ambiguous superior other and inferior self becomes the first premise of our
imagination and its aesthetics. In other words it assumes an inherit
possibility of progression or change in every life. Our physical body growth
also confirms this presupposition of less and more as an evidence of aesthetics
and it’s scales of beauty. Subsequently in this process the inferior naturally
gets associated with less and superior with more. There after anyone and
anything that talks about more become desirable and appropriate in society and
a desirable approach in life becomes a change towards more or progress.
Now there are four
additional parameters emerge in this process of defining superior: idea of
acceptability, conformity, progression and failure. Since this value judgment
scale is an individual assumption based on the societal construct of
relationships among one to one, one to many and many to many entities, the idea
of appropriateness in the selection of these relationships also gets defined
not only by those negotiations but also by the virtue of need that makes those
relationships relevant.
This further
complicates the matter as not only does the change become important but
appropriateness of such change based on a predefined need also becomes
important. Over and above the process has to conform to this idea of
acceptability of success or failure in its progression from inferior to
superior or less to more.
Possibility of transformation :
But the need and
appropriateness will not enable an inherently inferior or less to progress to
superior or accumulate more. In this construct, a less or inferior by the
virtue of being less or inferior itself cannot become more or superior, it
mandates an external intervention to accumulate more or transform to a
superior. As discussed in earlier paragraph, one does not exist by oneself in
society but one identifies oneself as one between the one to one, one to many
and many to many relationships. In other words, one simultaneously becomes
individual and also part of a community in our every day life in society. This
need based complementary existence of an individual through an external agency
of relationship, highlights the dependency of inferior on external agency for
its transformation to superior or acquirement of more.
There are two
important issues here.
1.
The criteria involved in the selection process involved in the
development of relationships
2.
The nature or process of relationships
If one elaborates
the above points, one will find the need for the conscious discerning capacity
or need for awareness in inferior to build the criteria of selection. In other
words even as the system acknowledges the ability of inferior for a conscious
selection, it separates the relationship as an external process from the
inferior by making inferior’s dependency on an external agency as a mandatory
process( here the criteria and appropriateness of relationship). These agencies
can be marriage, sex, animosity, country, religion, community so on and so
forth. Systems prescribe these external factors as the tools, techniques and
methods by which an inferior can progress to superior or a less to more.
Although mutually exclusive, claiming ownership of these factors, the system
turns these relationships into external tools, technique and methods that are
independent of inferior or superior and less or more, so that the ‘other’ or
‘more’ always remains romanticized, desired and aspired for. It insists, even
with ability to consciously discern the appropriateness of selecting the
intermediary process, one by virtue of being inferior will never be able to
become a superior without those external tools, techniques and methods. It
takes away the ability of transformation from inferior forever. In other words,
one has to employ these specific skill sets derived from those external agencies
as an individual effort to arrive at those superior others.
On a further note,
one will understand that this is a power game that is being played out with
these intermediary agencies. The agencies that possess the know-how or
capability to play this game by inventing, accelerating or supplying these
external tools, technique, methods as processes will also have the ability to
control the entire process of relationships or human life. Or one may say that
the agency itself may not be capable enough to manipulate human life, but the
one who control the agency will have that capacity. State, law, money,
religion, profession, education, planning, architecture, art and aesthetics all
become such agencies that control our life.
At this point, if
we recollect the initial story of river side project or for that matter any
developmental project as defined by society or state, one will start wondering
about the visual culture that defines the aesthetics of beauty for us. Or at
least one will have to start exploring what constructs that beauty in our life.
Ideas of aesthetics and consequence of beauty:
In late eighties,
when Delhi started developing by relocating urban slums to its border areas,
the affluent and the middle class in the city felt the joy of abundance both in
terms of serenity and cleanliness. But those exclusive affluent places but
slowly and steadily started giving away those individual convenient bungalows
to apartments, bigger houses for smaller flats, smaller crowds to larger
population, limited vehicular traffic to larger traffic jams and sufficient
water and power supply to sever water and power shortage.
By mid 2000, the
city once again became those urban slums with an only difference that now it
was made of affluent poor. The worst scenario was, as some of the studies
indicated, many married educated women from those affluent families started
leaving their jobs and their independence to look after their family as their
maids who helped them to continue in career were also made to exit in that process
of beautifying the city by displacing those poor. In other words, in the
process of beautifying the city, the age-old patriarchy system made a steady
come back in many homes. Tragedy did not end there; the next generation (and
perhaps the coming generations) had to travel hundreds of kilometers away from
the city to see or experience beauty of nature and breathe clean air. The
mountain valleys and river sources in around the city and nearby states also
have started getting cluttered with those seekers of nature’s beauty and the
uncontrolled tourism. The city dwellers with their idea of nature demanded
their idea of beauty, convenience from those places and in their effort to
attract the business of tourism most of these natural places got transformed
themselves into replicas of cluttered cities tourists escape. The nature and
culture of those places became limited to the show case exhibits in shop floors
and with the homogenized visual cultures, environment violations, traffic jams
and collapse of civic infrastructures those places also have become damaged.
This is not a
story of Delhi alone. All across this country and its cities, the story would
not be different. Between rich man’s beauty and poor man’s hunger, the game of
inferior and superior binary has played out very well everywhere with its
disastrous consequence from the idea of beauty in aesthetics. If aesthetics of
nature was what city dwellers were looking forward and aesthetics of nature was
what those far of places had in abundance to offer, tourism became their
external agency of dependence in that mutually exclusive relationship. Those
who had the commanding control of tourism controlled them both and perhaps
destroyed them both.
Economic
liberalization remains another important factor that influenced Indian urban
visual culture. Post liberalized shopping culture and its malls became one of
the iconic structure of Indian urban landscape that defined the idea of
spectacular for its people. Historically in Mumbai lights are never switched off
and the power cut is rather unheard of. Where as in rural Maharashtra the power
cuts lasts some time as long as 16 to 18 hours. Before the economic
liberalization the power cuts in rural Maharashtra used to be only 4 to 6 hours
in a day. Post liberalization as the super stores and malls with every inch of
it are lighted with power guzzling bulbs and air-conditioning to cool the glass
facades came up , rural Maharashtra started losing their share of power. The
power cuts have gone up from 4 to 6 hours to 16 to 18 hours and at times more
than that. Debt and draught ridden farmers started getting the heat of urban
aesthetics. Rain failed them at first place and over and above the power cuts
failed them more in their efforts to get the ground water for farming. Further
the government set up as much as 11 thermal power plants across draught ridden
villages sucking out the last little water that was left in the under ground
for farmers.
Post
liberalization farmer suicide in Indian villages stands at a staggering 2.5
lakhs or more and majority of them are from Maharashtra. I would not say that
it all emanate from those innocent urban design decisions of an architect or an
interior designer but when the damage is irreversible certainly one cannot
absolve the share of their aesthetic constructions.
Strangely in this
power play of inferior-superior binary, even today those 1.5 lakh deaths are
discounted as the necessary cost involved for the interest of nation’s
progress!
Further it is well
known the damage of post IT revolution European glass sensibility driven
facades in commercial architecture brought to the Indian cities during 46 to 50
degree summer heat. Professor BV Doshi’s studies in Ahmedabad are well known to
everyone. In a globalized world where every decision has its impact, some time
even an innocent decision can unleash catastrophic consequences to rest of the
world. so are ideas of aesthetics and consequence of beauty.
The urban public space painting: the tattooed
architecture:
Keeping all these
factors at hindsight, one wonders what defines urban visual culture and this
newfound idea of painting on public spaces?
Painting is not an
alien factor in Indian architecture or for that matter in public spaces. From
the length and breath of this country one can sight innumerable examples of
living traditions of painting houses, be it a rangoli or the Worli , Mythili or
Gond wall paintings, we have a long tradition of embellishing our houses with
narrative paintings or symbolic motifs. This is not something unique to India
alone as well, across the world there are many anthropological, sociological
and cultural studies that have went into understand this idea of aesthetics
that are many times relevant to rituals in those cultures and at other times
with a pure aesthetic value doing to human habitat.
As it traverses
from a simple aesthetic formulation to symbolic representation and then to
ritualistic iconography, the studies indicate a complicated status to these
images in human societies.
But if one keeps the
inferior - superior binary and the idea of progression in place, one will find
the strains of the power play in this process as well. Metaphorically the
aesthetics of image becomes the urge of identity or building relationship
between nature and self. Evidently it becomes either a celebration or
camouflage as a tool to build those relationships by exhibiting elements of
culture or negating it. Historically art, architecture and body tattooing had
been carrying out this role in human society. In this binary of inferior –
superior, each and every elements and motifs has a communicable significance to
assert one’s own progression as these aesthetical productions.
In aboriginal
cultures often bones, nails, and marks of their prey becomes the symbol of
valor or power structures and extensive body tattooing becomes the mode of
camouflage or embellishments.. We may find lots of similarity in the
objectivity of the idea of valor and identity in aboriginal culture to
contemporary cosmopolitan tattoo culture.
But the complexity
emerges with urban tattoo as visual culture when one places the developments in
20th century art movements along with these aesthetical expressions. Even if
one consider it as the continuity of Hippie movement and their obsession with
aboriginal cultures and its practices, one will find it difficult to comprehend
the objectivity of a tattoo under a steel gray Armani suit and its expression.
Further if one
keep this image tattooed body juxtaposed against the recent phenomena of urban
wall paintings to clean certain areas under responsible citizen’s initiatives
called Bombay rising and Bangalore rising etc, where a group of people clean up
an area in urban spaces and paint its walls to claims it as beautiful, the idea
of urban aesthetics of beauty becomes further complicated.
Further if one
considers the process of institutional groups and Paint Company sponsored
groups that are spouting across Indian cities and painting different images
among cluttered urban spaces making it further cluttered to claim artistic
beauty adds further complication to already complex phenomena.
Theoretically art
is viewed at three levels: innocent, initiated and informed. The first set of
people is the one who has a gaze of interest in art than a particular engagement.
For that person representation of identifiable reference in artwork and its
validation is all that they seek in it. More than they love an artwork they
love the sight.
Second set of
people is the one who validate an artwork for its conformity to aesthetic
principles. They understand the nuances of history, theory and its principles.
More than they love art, they love art for its conformity, concurrence and its
social and historical location. In other words they love their command over the
subject.
The third set of
people is the one who can identify with a work; one who can take the path of an
artist. Even as they traverse through the nuances of art history, theory and
its principle, they imbibe the ability to create a critical perspective on art.
More than they love art, they partner with it.
Although first two
are important, but after the post 20th century criticality developed in art, an
artist who practice in contemporary art will have to work with third group- one
with critical eye or one who is informed.
Keeping this
position at hindsight and take the cases of urban tattoo culture, one will find
it easy to bracket them in the first group with innocent eye. They don’t love
tattoo as art but they love the sight of it. We have to leave at it. But that
is not the case of these contemporary artists who paint the public spaces. When
they claim it as an art, the criticality of their act will become important.
The following points are important in that negotiation
Erasing an architectural façade or turning
architectural form into a canvas:
Considering
architecture itself is a rooted artistic form, does these paintings become part
of that art or which one will become the primary art form? Architecture or
painting on it?
How is this
displacement of one art form for the exclusivity of the other is critically
positioned?
What is the
critical negotiation artist is expressing when one turns a positive space of an
architectural form into negative space of a painting on it?
How is it different from the socio-political aspect of
colonisattion?
None of the
contemporary street arts seems to have addressed any of these issues or have
taken a critical position on it. Their arguments are also not different from
those who champion the power game of progression from inferior to superior.
Start group from Delhi, have famously said in one of the discussion forum in
Bangalore that their art serve the beautification of cityscapes that otherwise
would have been filled with filthy poster and fliers! In other words their idea
of aesthetics is no different from those affluent who have displaced the poor
from city for their rich man’s beauty ignoring poor man’s hunger.
The visual language
Another critical
area is the language. Graffiti came in the west as a response to over designed
serenity. So in other words these painting in the cluttered Indian urban space
cannot claim the historical or theoretical relevance of Graffiti language and
its expression. It cannot claim the ritualistic or embellished expression of
Indian traditional wall paintings as well, as it requires a cultural and
historical connection between the painting, inhabitants and its dwelling or
home. If one take a close look at these street art that are taking place in
Indian cities, one will find the design influenced contemporary western
narrative illustration form in it. More than a style value or the innocent
sight value, they do not convey any critical argument in these art works. Even
as many of them copy Banksy’s social critique format, they seems unable to put
forward a strong argument to defend the language of art as they wanted to call
it like Banksy or for that matter Jean-Michel Basquiat by differentiating their
distinct artistic language. The contemporary Indian street artists stay either
at innocent view level or at the maximum initiated view level, they do not
offer criticality of any sort.
Conclusion :
In a post 21st
century and post post modernist anthropocene age, an artwork cannot remain
without criticality or critically neutral. Today every image by the virtue of
being an image itself with its meaning making ability will become historically
and theoretically conscious. Even if one keeps the evangelised position of
criticality away from these artistic productions, considering the long history
of artistic production in this country, one cannot absolve oneself from its
socio-cultural and historical location in visual art and its language.
Unfortunately this post “art boom crash” trend in Indian art seems to be devoid
of any such positions. They all seem to have located their art in the
trajectory of inferior – superior binary and getting reduced to mere tool
operators of an unknown agenda. Often the boundaries are blurred between a
commercial bill board and these street art works and at times much worse, when
these groups uses these works for their
publicity campaign or their funding agencies names., they end up as one and the
same .
A public space is
a collective responsibility even if it is not a collective ownership. Every act
in that space has a socio-cultural and economic and political consequence. Even
if the artist for an argument sake positions himself or herself as neutral in a
public space, but by the mere act of locating that neutrality in a public space
will convert their act of neutrality into a socio-political act. An artistic
work cannot take place devoid of this knowledge. We have seen, if one does not
delve into the criticality of one’s own idea of aesthetics and beauty, how
those aesthetical or beauty construct in the binary of inferior and superior
can be of a catastrophic consequence as seen from the examples of Delhi and
Maharashtra listed above. So art and artistic production cannot claim innocence
in public space. If it is located in public it has to be a critically evaluated
production.
As of now when
these artists turn Indian urban architectures and spaces into canvases, don’t
seem to be producing art. They are producing tattoos for innocent eyes on urban
architectures in public spaces. It is time they evolve and develop criticality to
their work.
