Cast(e)ing Class and Colour into Visual Discourses
(Article first published under the same title in www.cartanart.com on 16th June 2014; edited by Johny M.L and Sushma Sabnis) Discourse on caste politics in Indian visual culture is a taboo, a sacrilege while it might not be actually so in practice. The reason for...
What is right with Indian Art History?
Two art historians of the same generation share a lot more in-between-lines, while silent interventions and interventionist silences of issues between them marks the inevitability of being able to see but not surpass the boundary of institutions that control the way we think. Becoming liberal or conservative about visual thinking is also a certain institutionalization!
Performative-Photos of Bengaluru: Gaze and Historicity amidst City’s Blinding Future
(Article originally published in Art & Deal monthly magazine, Issue 72, vol.10, No.40, June 2014; also available at www.artanddeal.com, published by Art Konsult, Edited by Siddharth Tagore and Paramjot Wohra) Incident 1: A couple of years ago, I saw a performance...
Hanuman in Ukiyo-e Avatar
She learnt cooking alongside getting a degree in art and design from Tokyo University. The taste of both culinary and aesthetics perhaps became inseparable to her in such a way that she came all the way to Kundapura in order to redefine and revive her taste-buds, when she was a budding artist.
Nandi Hills: Watching the Warming City with Cold Feet
(Travel essay about Nandi Hills, Bengaluru, published in www.travelanddeal.com, published on 31st May 2014; edited by Siddharth Tagore and Paramjot Walia. All photos by the author) ‘Tipu drop’ is a famous spot on top of the Nandi hills station, from where king Tipu...
No more Nude Studies!
(Article originally published on 26th May 2014 in www.cartanart.com, edited by Johny M.L and Sushma Sabnis) Three decades ago, a group of art students contacted a sex worker to pose nude, for the sake of nude studies, since it was not a part of their life-study...
The Feel of an Art School — with Love, Forever
Ken school of arts is a place within which its founder R.M.Hadapad literally lived and died, in Bengaluru. One had to go through the classrooms to meet him at his residence, before being laid to rest, the penultimate rites were conducted in the very classroom he built; and before that, outstation students literally stayed in the classrooms at night. One cannot ‘see’ the school, only the roof is visible from the surrounding high-rise post office, swimming pool, market, maternity hospital and police station.
An Effective Sway Between Governance and Art Activisim
The administrative governance and contemporary art activism do not gel well in the Indian context. The gap between their ‘expectations’ and ‘results’ is always the lengthiest thing that the country has creatively produced in the field of creativity, since independence (remember the likes of Lalitkala Academies, Bharath Bhavan). In this background, Rangoli Metro Art Center (MAC), an initiative of BMRCL, in Bangalore, seem to reduce the length of this gap, unusually.
Reviewing a ‘City in Transit’: Constitutional Parallels
Bangalore is perceived as a city-in-the-making, which contrasts with the idea of the city-with-a-past, history and nostalgia. However, this is the idea proposed by the governance in the recent years, which in turn believes in ‘development’ of the city as...
Reflections upon ‘Performative-Photos’
Performance, in visual arts, is a display of the artist’s physical self, as it is visible from within the limitation and possibility of photography. It is not a mere coincidence that such a performance became intense, as a twin to digital reproducibility. Watch any performance i.e photographs of performances, the audience is visible and verbal, as inevitable participants.
ART Historian, author
H. A. Anil Kumar
H.A. Anil Kumar is an art educationist, art historian, critic, curator, story teller & graphic novelist, teaching and writing on Indian contemporary visual art and films since 1992. He has written, edited and co-authored books, papers and art columns, radio and television talks for both academic and popular publications and radio/television telecasts, in two languages (English and Kannada) since last three decades.
He is also a story teller and his one line quotes and stories can be read in Instagram @ ‘haanilkumar’.
By H.A Anil kumar | ಎಚ್.ಎ. ಅನಿಲ್ ಕುಮಾರ್ ಅನುವಾದಿತ
ನೋಡುವ ಬಗೆ
ಮೂಲ ಕೃತಿ: ಜಾನ್ ಬರ್ಜರ್| Ways of Seeing
Kannada Translation of John Berger’s ‘Ways of Seeing’. John Berger’s 1972 television series and the book based on the series revolutionized how we view images, accusing high art of complicity in social, economic and gender inequality. It also challenged what Berger saw as the undemocratic culture of museums and galleries.
Other Books
Shantiniketan
Travelogue and a autobiography
Book 2
Varius natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes. Varius natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes.
Noduva Bage
Kannada Translation of John Berger’s ‘Ways of Seeing’.
To Infinity
SCIENCE IS THE ART OF LEGITIMISING LOGIC AND REASONING ABILITY OF EXPRESSION WHILE ART IS SCIENCE OF CONTESTING THOSE TWO!
A LONG CHERISHED DREAM INDICATES THAT YOU HAVE BEEN INEFFICIENT, LAZY, LETHARGIC ALL ALONG; & MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE, UNABLE TO ACHIEVE IT, YET, BECAUSE OF YOUR SLUMBER!
– H A ANIL KUMAR
IF MEDICINE CURES, ART HEALS; THAT’S WHY THE WRITINGS OF DOCTORS ARE EASILY DECIPHERABLE THAN THAT OF THE ARTISTS.