Frankly, if you have the first without the second, it is not worth
much. Being accorded space and recognition parity, if you like -representationalin the cultural sphere isn't worth too much

if you do not have social security rights. So these two aspects ofmulticulturalism -the representational and the civic -cannotbe disconnected.
The final issue I would like to raise is one on which I'dwelcome hearing the views of others, as it is something that I do
not know a great deal about but am interested in. In so far as weare discussing the role of art museums and biennials in a numberof different Asian contexts, how do these institutions that havebeen marked by their Western origins and the histories of theirtranslation into other cul5ures -how do they stand in relation toother, more local, indigenous traditions of collection andexhibition? Who is involved in the latter that are not involved in
the former? Are there important differences in the social forms ofparticipation between the two? While I don't know what theanswers to these questions are, I sense they might be important.
Questions concerning the role of exhibitionary institutions in the
promotion of various forms of social self-shaping and theinfluence of these on Asian identities do not just concern those
art institutions with Western origins.

SessionII

JJJModerator[S. Yoshimi]:Thank you. You have all brought up
points of mutual interest. As Professor Tatehata mentioned
earlier, as we discuss the proliferation of biennials and the
expansion of multiculturalism on the one hand, we must also
examine the two sides of this phenomenon. However, thisduality is related to the two-sidedness of Asia referred to inyesterday's discussion, Asia considered in terms of the logic ofresistance or liberation from colonial conditions and the opposite
idea, a framework of oppression, exclusion, or making things
invisible. These opposing sides correspond to each other.
Professor Tatehara spoke yesterday of how U.S.-Japan
relationship or the U.S.-China relationship still dominates theworld affairs, and the hegemony of the old Western-centric
system still has a powerful presence in today's art and culture.
Therefore, we must nor forger chat we are discussing these issues
in chis context.
With the growing prominence of multicultural exhibitions,what will be the relationship between exhibitions in art museums
as opposed to anthropological and ethnological museums? It isalso important to chink about the relationship between art
museums an visitors, citizens, or the audience in the broadest
sense.
Before expanding our discussion into these areas, I would liketo take questions from the audience. Ideally, I would like to haveeach person ask their questions themselves, but due to time
constraints, please allow me to read the questions.
First of all, I have two questions for Professor Lee.
One is, "How was 'shamanistic ritual' incorporated into the
Gwangju Biennale?"
The other question is, "Why are these exhibitions notorganized annually, but organized in biennial and triennial forms?
My understanding is chis. Rice is harvested every year in theautumn, bur also collected to pay the annual tribute. It is notevery 2 years or 3 years. So, could we not say char biennials andtriennials, which happen every 2 years or 3 years, are events chatresist such authoritarian power? Do rhey not embody an antiauthoritarian attitude? If so, what does it mean for the biennials

JJ4

SessionII

and triennials to acquire commercial and entertainment qualities?
Does it not mean that they have submitted to authority?"
To Professor Tarehata.
"Many Asian artists who are represented in international
exhibitions have studied in the West or developed countries.
What do you think of the gap between artists who are rooted intheir own native country, and artists who are engaged with theelitist global community?"
Another question to Professor Tatehata .

"If an aspect of early Cubism was cultural colonialism andexploitation, it goes along with the idea that Euro-American
culture is superior to ochers. Bur I wonder if such hierarchicalrelationships exist in the first place. What do you mean by
exploitation? Looking at the issue from a different point of view,
could we not call the 'transplantation' of European curring edge
art to Asia 'exploitation ' of the West by Asia?"
The next question is addressed to Professor Bennett .
"The Tare Modern in London seems to attract a large
audience owing to its interesting exhibiting style. Bur considering
what I saw when I visited the museum last year, there were hardly
any Asian artists exhibited . I do nor mean to advocate
regionalism, but what do you think of their exhibition policy?"
There are other questions from yesterday that relate totoday's presentations. I chink it would be relevant to bring themup now and have our panelists discuss these topics, so I would
like to introduce these questions.
This question refers to Professor Sakai's keynote speech.
"I was very interested to hear the explanation of how theconcept of Asia and its identity was constructed through cofigurative identification and cartographic imagination. My firstquestion is, how could we suspend and reconstruct subjectivity
and identity in a framework other than rhar of a colonial
relationship? My second question refers to the concept of Asiaand its inherent violence. Are there people, such as Amerasians,
who may be excluded from Asianness? Do you have an idea
about dismantl ing the concept of Asia?"
The next question is directly related to Mr. Mohamad 's

SessionII335

presentation, but it is also relevant co today's discussion.
"I wonder how Mr. Mohamad, who I understand is a
Muslim and a cultural activist, feels about the diverse powers inAsia and how they could contribute co che entire world?"
I believe chis question refers co che present global landscapeafter September 11ch, in which the world is heading in the
opposite direction from promoting dialog. Since chis question
points co Asian power or multiculturalism in the present global
context, I thought it might be relevant to today's discussion.
I hope the panelists can respond co these questions as muchas possible. Could we first have Professor Lee respond?
Y. Lee: I wonder if I understood the question well. I am not ashaman, of course, so I did not play a shamanistic role. There
were plenty of different roles I had co play at the initial stage ofthe Gwangju Biennale.
In Gwangju, we did not have any exhibition spaces ocher
than the municipal museum, which is a nice place, but not large
enough co hold an international biennial. I had invited more than
180 artists. So I had co argue with the municipal government
regarding construction of a new biennial hall, like the Documenta
hall in Kassel: a huge, very simple, functional building. Anyway,
my proposal to build a new space for the Biennale was acceptedby the municipal government. When we asked architects codesign a functional building, they tried co make it into their own
work, which made it difficult for us co create the kind of space wewanted for large, experimental installation-type art. I had serious
arguments with rwo architects because they wanted co create theirown work, whereas I wanted a very simple, functional space. In
the course of the construction, the rwo architects disappeared andthe construction company changed. So my role was not reallyshamanistic.
Let me give you another example. We invited a very young
Cuban artist, who was 25 years old at the time, selected by one of
the commissioners Kathy Halbreich, the director of the Walker
Arc Center in Minneapolis, who cook charge of che section formodern American arc. Unfortunately, at the time, Korea did not

336

SessionIIhave any diplomatic relationship with Cuba. Bue my policy wasco bring all the participating artists co Korea and have chem work
on-site co build a kind of team spirit. First, I asked che artist cosend me che drawings of his inscallacion. Bue he did not have his'

own fax machine, so he had co go co the government office in
Havana just co fax the material. le cook 5 days for the documentsco arrive. Next, I had plans co fly him through Los Angeles, bur
the American authorities naturally rejected him. So I decided cogo through Spain, but chey rejected us also. The Frenchgovernment also rejected us. I had invited Paul Schimmel, thechief curator of the Museum of Contemporary Arc, Los Angeles,
as one of che jury members. So I asked him co help me because I
had co have chis artist ac lease two days before che opening
ceremony. In che end che artist was able co come co Korea.
Bue the artist made very cough demands. He cold me chat heneeded 100 thousand empty beer bottles. Could you imagine,
collecting 100 thousand empty bottles in two days? le is not easy.
Fortunately, I had a friend who worked as the branch manager inche Gwangju area for the OB Beer Company. I asked him co giveme 100 thousand empry bottles. He said yes, but under che
condition chat we could not cake off the label.
The artist also asked me to find a wooden boat. I discoveredchat finding a wooden boat is very, very difficult. Mose boats weremade of plastic, and there were no wooden boats available. So,
during my interview with che local TV station, I mentioned chat I
was looking for a wooden boat. Then a person from che local
sanitation department found me a green wooden boat, which was
perfect for our purpose.
The artist finally arrived just two days before the opening
ceremony. He created a nice map of Cuba with the empty bottles
and che wooden boat on cop co describe his idea of Cuban boat
people. le was very beautiful. When the five juries gathered,because we had a prize system ac the time, they unanimously
agreed co give chis artist che grand prize.
There were a loc of difficulcies working with younger artists,
who are notorious for demanding a lot in equipment and otherthings. The local audience in Gwangju did not understand new

SessionII

JJ)

media art and cutting-edge installations at all. They wanted to seevery important pieces, such as Picasso paintings, Brancusi
sculptures, and other Western masterpieces. So, when they cameto see the Biennale, they found it boring. But they knew how toenjoy some pieces. They were eager to understand the context ofthe huge installations. They immediately understood the content
of the work by the Cuban artist.
So if I was playing a Shamanistic role at all, it was a great fun.
The question is why are we so enthusiastic about creating thiskind of international art event? I mentioned that the number ofbiennials organized today is about 120, which is a scary number.
Why do we need so many art events, today? I was at the openingof the Shanghai Biennale, but many of my colleagues also went to
see the Guangzhou Triennale in China. You will see another one
in China next year, the Beijing Biennale. The Chinese organizers
were very stimulated and encouraged by the founding of the
Shanghai Biennale. I am not suggesting that Beijing is always
opposed to Shanghai, but they say that Shanghai is che center ofcontemporary art act. People from Beijing did not want an art
event called a biennial.
In response to the second question, which refers to biennials
as forces for anti-institutional art, biennials muse be distinguishedfrom museum exhibitions. Museum exhibitions are importantand they involve historical research. Museums are also very
institutional and systematic, and they have a kind of internal
vanity, whereas biennials have the freedom of choosing artists,organizing committees and functions. So I think biennials arebasically anti-institutional or anci-escablishmenc, and provide agreat way to interpret contemporary art.

Moderator[S. Yoshimi]: Professor Tacehaca, please.
A. Tatehata: I would like to respond co the questions raised.

It may be true for artists from other regions, too, but ic iscertainly true that many Asian artists have studied in Europe or
America. This is a face. There was a question regarding these
artists and che discrepancy in their identity. It is true chat338

Session II'magiciens de la terre' are rare. If there were any artists who were
purely magicians, it would be a miracle. The person would haveto have lived in a remote hinterland, completely cut off from any
information. But, the fact is, many artists study in Europe or
America, or study about modernism in their local art schools.
Although, there is a gap in their identity, the situation is not
so simple. When artists and art professionals return from overseas
to their native country, a high percentage of them go back to
identifying themselves with their native context afrer some time,rather than keeping up with a Euro-American discourse. In
extreme cases, they become advocates of nationalism. We haveseen examples of this in Japanese history from the Meiji era on,
and we could probably say that this is still the case in the present
day Japan.
So, because there are such contradictory elements embeddedin the structure of identity, it is not as simple as questioning the
gap between elite artists and 'magiciens de la terre.'
My response to the other question also relates to this. I did
say that there was an element of cultural colonialism andexploitation in early Cubism. And I agree that the the West is
put in a superior position in the hierarchy and that there is
exploitation. But the issue at hand is not so simple.
Let's say that I am deeply moved by an early Cubist artwork,
but my value system says that responding to it in this manner isconsidered wrong. In such a case, we would have to debate
whether or not the artist is right or wrong before we discuss
whether or not the artwork is moving or not. If I were toappreciate this artwork that was produced through exploitation,although it was considered wrong to do so, I would have toquestion the education that nurtured my taste, namely EuroAmerican modernism. Furthermore, ifI were to understand thatmy educational background is an outcome of historical process, I
would have to overcome my own history and improve myself tobecome a progressive person. This means that I need to continue
creating a history that overcomes my past. I will continue tobecome a better person as I reflect on and regret my past. But I
think this could lead to a serious problem.

SessionII

JJ9Although we may know chat the artwork is an outcome of
exploitation, we could hold to our illusions that we have universal
values for recognizing good art. To acknowledge chis is painful,
and we could recognize this as the pain in the concept of Asia that
Mr. Mohamad spoke of. Ir may be necessary to relarivize the selfwhile feeling this pain in a gray zone, to maintain a strong will
even though one occupies a half-way position. This may besomewhat rhetorical, but in considering the gap between theidentity of elites and char of the magicians and the issue ofcolonialism, I chink chat we should nor simplify the issue.
Perhaps it is irresponsible to advocate ambivalence bur it would
be more dangerous if we simplify chis problem.

Moderator[S. Yoshimil:Thank you. Professor Bennett, please.
T. Bennett: With regard to the first question about whether or
not European art and art institutions are exploitative of Asia, I am
nor sure that "exploitative" would be the best way of dealing withthe complexities and nuances of such relationships. What is at theback of my mind in saying this is best clarified by recalling thework of writers like James Clifford and Mary Louise Pratt whose
notion of" contact zones" suggests a different way of describingcolonial relationships between Western and "non-Western
societies." For it allows you to think about how, in the context ofcolonial histories, processes of artistic and cultural exchange
involved the mutual traffic of artifacts and artistic practices not just a one way transmission from west to east. I don 't chink"exploitation " -given its stress on domination andsubordination -is able to encompass all char happens withinsuch exchanges.
The second question concerned what I thought about the
Asian collections and exhibits at the Tare Modern. I'm afraid that
I cannot answer this question because I am not familiar with thecurrent exhibits in adequate detail.
What I wanted to pick up on, finally, was one of thequestions relating to yesterday's discussion concerning the
breakdown of the notion of Asia and what we think of char. I

340

less,on II.

would like to speak about the questions this raises at a moregeneral level, because it seems to me that it is not just an Asian
problem. All of the relational identities that were organized andconstructed in relation to one ocher in the history of colonialism
are now in a process of falling apart and being reconstructed in
the context of the new relations that are emerging between them .
I could well imagine that, although it would be different in
its particulars, a similar meeting held in Europe to this one asking
about European identity would not be different in the kind ofissues it would raise. In contemporary Europe, of course, there are
ongoing discussions about "What is Europe?" As Asia redefines
itself, so does Europe. The issues about who should be involved
in discussions about European identity at the moment arepressing ones in the context of debates around the enlargement of
the European Union. What does it mean to think of Turkey
becoming part of Europe? What does chis mean for Europe as an
identity? Identities are always relational and they are organized incomplex relations to one another. The history of Europe's
identity is shaped not just by its relationship to Asia, but also by
its relationship with Africa and others.
Mr. Mohamad talked about how Europe had organized itself
by cutting off and denying any notion that its origins may lie in
Asia. The same is exactly true for its relationship to Africa. In the
19th century, very complicated debates emerged denying any
possible line of connection running from Greek civilization backto Egyptian civilization, because chat would have meant chatwhite European civilization would have had to acknowledge its
origins in black African civilization. The more general point,
though, is that if colonialism organized a series of relational
identities, what we are now living through is a period in which allof these are coming unstuck from one ocher and being redefined .
We won't be able to deal with the question of Asia meaningfully
if we isolate it from chis more general process.

ModeratorIs.Yoshimi]:Thank you . The title of Session II is "Asiachat is Exhibited / Asia chat is not Exhibited." Bur throughout
today's discussion, continuing from yesterday's, we have started

SessionII]41

co see che theme "beyond the borders" first presented by Professor
Lee in his Gwangju Biennale as the underlying theme.
I chink the example of the Cuban artist is a vivid portrayal ofwhat it means co go beyond che borders, genres; arc systems andinstitutions , or differences in knowledge. We are talking about
practices chat go beyond che borders. Biennials and triennials are,according co today's discussion, a place where the practice ofgetting beyond the borders in a mulciculcural way is forcefully
demonstrated .
Through today's discussion, ic became apparent chat when
we speak of going over the borders in the context of globalization,
political economy, and the direction of power and capital, money
is what cakes us over che borders -cash and multinational

financial capital. le cakes us over borders with great speed.
So what context should our discussion cake place in? For
example, when we discuss Asia, it only exists as a constructed
framework. Therefore, we muse chink on our own about
institutions of arc, biennial, and ocher culcural institutions in thecontext of chis mulciculcural Asia chat we desire. We need coaddress the issues through dialog from many different
perspectives. I find it very important chat we make criticalassertions or ask ourselves over and over again about the
representation of Asia and its transgression in the context ofsociety, history, policies and economy .
I would like co encourage further discussion chis afternoon
chat follows up on what we have discussed so far in chis session.
Could I ask everybody co give our three panelists a hand?
Thank you.

]42

SessionII

Session III Presentation 1

Art and Trousers
David Elliott
Director, Mori An Musewn

Thank you for again asking me to speak at the Japan Foundation
Asia Center at a Conference on the subject of "what is Asia?" It's animpossible question, of course, and three years ago when I Iasr
responded to it, my answer was something like "ir's a Black Hole
which can attract and absorb all things with its mass" or "it's like a
blank screen onto which any fantasy may be projected by the rest of
the world". You could say char this was hardly the most precise ofanswers and you would be right, but the topic is not precise either
when each of us have a different idea about what it is we are thinking
about. In short , Asia to the insider, the resident of Asia, could neverDavid Elliottbe the same as it is to anyone else. Time and space change theperspective on what is viewed ..... and then there is the further vitalquestion "who is actually wearing the trousers?". 1
Now, the role of the trou ser is well-known in history as thecivilizing force with which the West conquered the rest of the world.
Throughout the 19th century , the trouser Industrial Revolution -a product of theas well as of the desires and the anitudes it

Martini rifle may have won the battles of Empire but it was thetrouser that cemented the peace. In combat with nakedness orlooseness of garb, and the immorality that both inevitably brought intheir wake, the trouser became the bedrock of social decency and thehierarchical chain of relationships upon which this depended.
and many African,

Asian and Latin American people no doubt still feel that the trouser
was cruelly forced upon them -sometimes it was eagerly embraced,as was the case in Japan, by people who wanted to modernise , to get
rid of their past and adopt progress. Virile and dynamic (in that itallowed unfettered movement of the legs), rhe trouser became asymbol of being a winner in the world dominator.

344

SessionIll

no, not just winner -ofte n used to refe r to a coup lewhen it is expected that theengendered, seemed like an invincible force. The Lee Enfield andSometimes it was impo sed by military victory -In English rhe popularexpression"who is wearing the trousers?"i~awo man maybe the more
do min ant. By extensio n this now

also applies ro same sex couples.

And from the outset it was Men who wore the trousers -somuch so that the trouser became the symbol of their power, andwomen had ro fight their own battles so that they too could become
empowered by the magic of this garment.
Now you may be wondering what bearing this may have on thesubject of this conference namely, "The Asia that is represented or
NOT represented in exhibitions?" Well, the trouser in itself is not aparticularly interesting garment , yet in symbolic form it expresses awhole range of shifting values relating to power throughout the world
since the age of the European Enlightenment . It seems to me that any
discussion about the summation of images and ideas in exhibitions
relating to Asia [or anywhere else that is not Europe or North
America] needs first to clarify its relationship to the Trouser. Or, to
put this into a less condensed form, art exhibitions are not only
cultural but also strategic. To understand their significance one mustfirst examine both their purpose and the contexts in which they are
made and released; only then may the attitudes which they express
start to become clear.
When I last spoke at the Japan Foundation I touched upon thedanger of perpetuating negative or misleading stereotypes in largescale summarizing exhibitions about Asian art and culture . Such
temptations are strong because they pander to widely held
preconceptions or prejudices about Otherness -the very wellspringsof Trouser Power. I do not propose to discuss this again other than to
say that I believe that we are at a stage now where we can start to use
such stereotypes against themselves in exhibitions. We should say Asian cultures -or perhaps I

are now strong enough, and theappreciation of them outside Asia starting to be sufficiently
developed, to start to play with prejudices in this way. But care still
has to be taken. 2
In 200 5 the Mori Art Mu seum isplannin g a large travelingexhibiti o n o f Asian arc called "Hot'n' Spicy" which will also includ e

Neither do I intend to discuss here the large Governmentsponsored , often reciprocal, exhibitions or festivals of art fromexampl es of design, fashion, film ,

different Asian countries that regularly spring up in various worldmusic and popular culture from

capitals. Many of them contain excellent presentations andseven Asian countri es. Th econt ent, balance and perspective

performances yet their aim is essentially political and they form partof this exhibition will play upon
the compl ex association s of itsof an overall strategy to cement other strategic, often political or
economic ties.

title.

What interests me more is the way in which the discourse about
contemporary art has been changing since the early 1980s and how

SessionIll345

chis has enabled Asia to be now included incorporated -some would say

in it along with other equally unfashionable parts of

the world. My brief irony here does not mean to imply chat because
Asia is now becoming more "fashionable" chis is the only reason that
Asian artists are increasingly included in monographic, thematic andgeo-politically based exhibitions of contemporary art. Other deeper
and stronger forces are at work to have changed world perspectives
over the past 30 years. Some are demographic, some political andeconomic -and they are not confined to Asia. In every sense we

now feel we are all part of the same set of systems whether in the art
world or in the hazy category of "Globalism". But because they arenew, the nature of these systems is not yet clear to us and we cannot
really say where decisive power lies within them. 3
On a demographic level Britain, Europe, the USA and Canada
have over the past 50 years absorbed many people originating from
Asia and Africa. Compared to what it once was Britain is now
multicultural, as are France and Germany. Particularly in Western
Europe, children of Asian parents have become absorbed andnaturalised and although some tensions remain, their music, food,The resolution of the unresolved
discussion between che US
Government and the United

Nations on Iraq regarding"regimechange" on one hand and"weapons inspection " on the otherwill significantlyhelp crystallizea
view on where power lies incurrent world governance.

fashion and many words have penetrated the cultures of their adopted
coun cries.4

4

Economic emigration from Asia and elsewhere is a continuing
and longstanding phenomenon which continues to change the face of
the world. The great fear of this has been hybridization in its racist garb mongrelization -or to put it

the fear of being swamped,

polluted and changed forever. Yet in spite of intercontinental moves
and intermarriages there is no sign of anything like chis happening orof homogenization -everything gradually becoming the same.

Diversity seems to be working and although all cultures must adapt tosurvive, there is nothing to suggest that they are all heading in thesame direction.
And then there have been the completely unpredictableideological changes: the death rattle of Colonialism with the end of
Apartheid in South Africa; the demise of the Soviet Union and of theEase-West balance of power upon which the Cold War depended, themodernization of politics in China and the opening up of markets.
My own professional encounters with Otherness have, notsurprisingly, changed in step with the openings up I have justdescribed. Working initially in Britain at the Museum of Modern Art

346

SessionIll

In Britain chis process started

under the Empire. le was at chistime that curry became part of the

Englishcuisine -although aspecial "curry powder" wasinvented to make the preparationeasier and more to the English
taste. Interestingly it was throughthe agency of the British navy charkari (and curry powder) came to
Japan in that Japanesesailors took
a liking to ic when they visited
British messes and then
"imported" it into Japan where it
quickly became popular.
Nowadays most middle class
British cooks use individual spices
rather than curry powder.

in Oxford I was, from the late 1970s, able to start a discussion about
the nature of contemporary arr which had little ro do with a desire forthe exotic -one of the main failings of the landmark exhibition"Magiciens de la Terre" which rook place in Paris in 1989 5 Paris, Ce ntre Geo rges Po mpido u
and La Villecce, 1989.

bur

rhar was generated more by the need to establish more stable andtransparent criteria for the evaluation of quality and ro map our aterritory which was nor wholly delimited either by tradition or themarker.
Ar rhis point I need ro explain a little about rhe crisis inContemporary Arr and its institutions which hit Western Europe andAmerica -rhe hearrland of Trouser Culture -in the middle of rhe

1970s. To put it in a nutshell, the old avant-garde rolled over anddied. The loose alliance between radical arr and [western-style] radical
politics which had fuelled the movement of "-isms" since the middleof rhe 19th century had come to an end. After Minimal andConceptual Arr, there seemed to be no further place to go. The only
way was back and rhe historicist strategies of figurative painting began
ro dominate the scene. Bur a number of the painters who came into
fashion at this rime had been working and exhibiting for at least 20
years. This led me ro ask myself a number of questions: "if thesepainters were good 20 years ago, why did we not know it then?" -or ,more to the point, "what prevented us from seeing ir?" As all rhis had
occurred on our doorstep and we had been oblivious of it, my third
question was "what else have we been prevented from seeing?" -or,more to the point, "what else have we prevented ourselves fromseeing?"
My main historical interest at this rime was in Russian and Soviet
Constructivism of rhe 191 Os and 1920s and what had been clear inworking on this field was that western critics had completely
misunderstood, or had chosen ro ignore , what rhe artists themselves
had thought they were doing in their work and how they evaluated it.
The politics had been censored our of rhe discussion leaving it with
only conferred meaning s. Like orphan s from some distant country
these works had been adopted by rhe West and made as one of theirown.
There is no rime ro enter here into a discussion about rhe pros
and cons oflntentional Fallacy bur you could say that during the
1980s and early 1990s underst anding intentions , discovering new
hisrories and removing the blinkers from my own eyes became theSession Ill347

distinguishing elements within my work as a curator. I pursued chisnot out of any sense of altruism or desire to be fair but out of thesimple realisation that contemporary art was being made everywherein the world. Following on from a statement made by American artist
Donald Judd in the 1960s, the question was not so much whether
what we were looking at was "contemporary" but whether it was any"good". 6 Clarification of the different elements that under different

6learned at school and university could be of little help. Its close

Judd was talking about adefinition of arc in a poscDuchampian world. By the I 960s
virtually any form of production
could be named or made as "arc".

relationship with the market, combined with desperate conservatism,

The issueforJuddwas one ofcircumstances can confer "goodness" started and continues to be mymajor project -what I realised was chat the conventions I had

made the contemporary art world seem self serving, narrow andignorant about anything beyond itself. In spice of its ofren radical
credentials, and the personal convictions of many of its members, as
an institution it seemed to operate a kind of cultural apartheid.
So showing contemporary and modern art from Russia, Latin
America, Africa and Asia became an integral part of the program of
the Museum of Modern Art Oxford -chis was not cordoned offfrom the rest of our activities bur was integrated into a programme
which also showed what we thought was the best in western art. Onlyin this way -on equal terms -could a dialogue be established.

Some people felt at chis rime that focusing on regions, countries
or schools was not the right way to go forward because it typecast
Otherness and was therefore retrograde. It was better, so they argued,
to integrate artists from "outside" into mainstream thematic or groupexhibitions. I felt that this was not helpful because it led to tokenism
with the same artists, from Mexico, Japan or Cameroon for example,
appearing in big international shows. Their argument was chat you
somehow diminished artists by characterising them as "Mexican","African" or the like because they were part of an international
community. This was, I feel, a little disingenuous as it revealed how
negatively the arc world regarded chose whom it did not think werepart of it -and, of course, any outsider quickly realised this (andquickly reached for the nearest pair of trousers). But I was equallyinterested in the sans culottes and for me it was virally important, if I
was going to be working in a system I believed in, to see for myself
the art char was actually "out there". Programs of research needed to
be set up and then an assessment made about whether what one had"found" deserved a place in the exhibitions, critiques and history

348

Session Ill

quality not of nomenclatur e.

books of modern and contemporary art. We then began to talk about

historiesrather than just history and our world seemed a much lessmonolithic place. The 1980s for me were a decade of reassessment
and discovery. Inevitably, in the process a number of difficult issues
were raised.
In 1982 a series of three exhibitions held in Oxford: "India Mythand Reality aspects of modern Indian art"; "The Other India sevencontemporary photographer s"; and "Gods of the Byways Wayside
7
E. Alkazi, D.Elli ott, V. M usgrave(eds) India Myth and Reality

aspectsof modern Indian art; D.
Elliott (ed), The Other India sevencontemporaryphotographers; E.
Alkazi, U. Anand Godsof the
Byways Waysideshrinesof

Rajasthan,Madhya Pradeshand
Gujarat all publi shed by the
M useum of Modern Art O xford,
1982 .

shrines of Rajasrhan, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat" 7 examined
respectively the development of Modernism in India from the 1940s,
art and documentary photography and folk art relating to the preHindu popular religions in parts of Northern India .
Britain has had man y strong links with India because of its
imperial past but it still has no Museum devoted to the art oflndia
nor any Professor nor University Department of Indian art. These art
exhibitions showed how modernity had developed painfully andprecariously in the still colonially-condition ed climate of Independent
India. The laboured self-consciousness and obvious pain one could
see in the Fine Arr, contrasted with the spontaneous creativity andbright colours of the Folk Art. Issues of derivation arose as wellbecause so many of the artists had studied in British Art Schools andhad been strongly influenced by their teachers there. In terms ofphotography, India seemed to be almost too big a subject for anyone
to grasp: we decided that we would nor cover the standard views oftemples and picturesque customs bur try to present a picture thatreflected only current situations.
Our of this encounter with India other exhibitions subsequently
developed: of film poster s and film (1982), of the painting s ofRabrindranarh Tagore (1986), of "glass" paintings on perspex by
K.G . Subraman yam (1988) and of sculpture by Mrinalini Mukherjee

8

R. Mo nk, A. Rob inson (eds)
Rabindranath Tagore:A

Ceubrationof his lift and Work,
Rabindranach Tagore Festival
Co mmi ttee/M useum of Mod ern(1994) . 8
But the main show of Fine Art met with a rather bemusedresponse from the audience. Ir was just not cool in spire of the factthat a young Anish Kapoor had, after considerable hesitation , agreed

Arr Oxfo rd , 1986. D . Elliott,to be exhibited as a "young Indian artist ". And, looking back, its

K G.SubramanyanFairy Talesof

unashamedly didactic structure seems to creak a little. Works were

Oxford and other Paintings,
M useum of Mo dern Art, 1988. C.
Iles, D. Robinson Mrinalini

MukherjeeSculpture,M useum of
Mod ern Arr Oxford, 1994 .

grouped under such headings as "The hinterland of Myth" : Husain,
F.N. Souza, Sarish Gujral ; "Nature as pictorial metaphor ": Raza,
Padamsee, Ram Kumar; "The Dislocat ed Persona" Mohan SamantSessionIll

349

Tyeb Mehta, K.G. Subramanyam; "Social Satire and PoliticalProtest": Krishen Khanna, A. Ramachandran, Bikash Bhattacharjee ,Jogen Chowdhury, Rameshwar Broota, R.S. Kaleka; "Strangers in theCity": Gieve Patel, Sudhir Pacwardhan ; "Middle class alienation ":Nalini Malini; "New Myths New realities": Mrinalini Mukherjee,
Anish Kapoor. While undoubtedly content (and this here was related
to chronological development) provided a way into the exhibition forthe observer, we should have been prepared to let the art speak more
for itself. I would now only now use categories which the artists
themselves would readily recognise or, alternatively, as in the case of
the exhibition of Japanese avant-garde that followed two years later,
make the groupings more chronological and neutral.
"Reconstructions: avant-garde art in Japan 1945-1965" (1985)
was curated by Kaido Kazu and myself, based on her doctoral researchat the University of Oxford. 9 It is fair to say that Japanese modern

9

art was almost totally unknown in Britain at this time and even in

D .Ellion , K. Kaido (eds)
Reconstructions:Avant-garde art inJapan1945-65, Museum ofModern Arr O xford, 1985.

Japan itself this period was often reduced to little more than aconsideration of Gutai and infonnel painters. The immediate post-war
period was regarded as too political and the early 1960s too avantgarde then to be taken seriously. Nevertheless through the help ofOshima Seiji, Director of the Setagaya Art Museum, we managed to
get the support of the Yomiuri Shimbun and the Japan Foundation
which made the exhibition possible. It began with a section called"Surrealism and post-war reconstruction " in which Okamoto Taro's
large painting The Law of thejungle, (1950) was the big star. In mid1980s Britain the image of a huge, brightly coloured shark bisected bya zip fastener -long before Damien Hirst's famous shark informaldehyde -was an arrestingly punk-like image. And the show

continued in this way combining good serious work with big surprises
such as Kawara On 's shaped canvases of a Black Soldier (1955), or
Bathroom (pregnantwoman) (1954) - of a woman being-

dismembered, Yamashita Kikuji 's expose of Tokyo under theAmerican Occupation in The Tale of New Japan (1954) -or Ishii

Shigeo's Dance (1956) in which Japanese bobbysoxers desperately bop
while the city falls around them. The second section, "Gucai,
Informel and Abstract Art", covered the fields of Gutai, performanceand abstraction right through to the mid-1960s . The last section ran
parallel to this and was called "Neo-dada, High Red Center -the artof the Sixties"; it contained the youngest generation in the show:

350

SessionIll

Shinohara Ushio's violently coloured and roughly made update of a
traditional Japanese screen and Kusama Yayoi's seductive yetthreatening phallic chair were big hies as well as was a very early filmby Ono Yoko.
What impact did chis surprising exhibition really make? It's hardco say. People were police but they did not really know how co react.
le did not relate co anything thing within their experience. What wasdear was che incredible energy and vision among these artists chat had
been completely neglected in the histories. The exhibition was like a
depth charge: it was good but not fashionable and no one really knew
how or why it was good. The catalogue appeared in the Japanese
language a little later as an issue of the magazine Art Vivant bur it was
not until the beginning of the 1990s chat exhibitions of chis scope
scarred co appear inside Japan.
We wanted to make an exhibition of Japanese Manga
immediately after "Reconstructions" because chis seemed the most
attractive, active and innovarory field within Japanese visual culcure atchat time but it was difficult co find enthusiasm among either funders
or manga publishers for such a project. We also hie the rocks in crying
to put together a large exhibition on the arc and films of Kurosawa
Akira -

a follow-up co one we had already made on Sergei Eisensteinin 1988. The film-maker was not actively against such a project but I
chink chat he regarded it as coo much of a memorial at a time when
he was still hungry co make new films. Bue a number of follow-ups
did resulc, the earliest being in August 1985, a commemoration of the10
The book of drawings by Atom
Bomb Survivors published in
English by N HK served as thecata1oguefor this exhibition. The
time chis exhibition took place(1985) was marked in Britain by
the stationing of US C ruise

Missiles on British soil and many
public protests against chis.

II

M. Holborn, BlackSun: the Eyesof Four (contained work by Eikoh40th anniversary of the dropping of the A Bomb in the form of
paintings and drawings with memories of chat time by hibakusha,
borrow ed from the Hiroshima Peace Culcure Foundation . 10 "Black
Sun: The Eyes of Four " (1986) a dark, brooding exhibition on
post-war Japanese photography II and in 1988, with the Museed'Arc Moderne in Calais, a retrospective of the work of Kusama
Yayoi. 12
After making "Reconstructions " our thoughts immediately
turned co what had been happening in China, then still in the process

Hosoe, Sho mei T ornatsu,

of recovering from che ravages of che Cultural Revolution. Progress

Masahisa Fukase, Daido

was slow both in getting support and in finding funding. A visit roMoriyama), New York, Aperture,

1986.

Oxford in 1986 by Wang Meng, the Chinese Minister of Culcure,12

was encouraging but little happened afterwards. Meanwhile a whole

No catalogue published.

generation of artists was emerging which finally exhibited together in

SessionIll

JSI

"China Avant-garde" in the large exhibition hall on Tianenmen
Square in Beijing in the spring of 1989 just before the historicStudents' Revolt. After the suppression of chis by armed troops noWestern country could sustain cultural relations with China -but

we still continued to collect material and research. By 1992 theinternational situation had settled down and we started planningagain. At chis time we heard that a German and Durch group
working for the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin were also
working on a similar project. Some leading western Sinologiscs wereinvolved in this, while we were more interested in how this work
related to other contemporary art. With some misgivings we decided
to combine our forces and an excellent catalogue China Avant-garde
was produced by the German side. 13 The exhibition however was lessinspiring in chat it included historically important work made since

13

J. Noth, I. Poehlmann, K.Reschke(eds), China Avant-Garde, Berlin,

the beginning of the 1980s bur concentrated too much on the "PopEdition Braus/Haus der Kulruren

Art" -

der Welt, 1993.

a tendency chat was being strongly pushed in the commercial

galleries. For chis reason in 1993 we immediately followed "China
Avant-garde" with another exhibition "Silent Energy: New Art from
China" which was put together to concentrate on the installation andsite specific work being made by the younger generation. 14 This was

14

the first museum show to put the work of Cai Guoqiang, Chen Zhen,

D. Elliott, L. Mepham Silent
Energy: New Art from China,

Gu Wenda, Guan Wei, Huang Yongping, Wang Luyan, Xi Jianjun

Museum of Modern Arc Oxford,

and Yang Jiechang in this context and aroused immediate public
interest -1993.

there was even a scandal: a famous children's broadcaster

denounced the Museum for cruelry to animals in showing Huang
Yongping' s installation YellowPerilwhich put together five scorpions
in a perspex cage with two thousand locusts.
In working with artists from abroad the Artist in Residency
schemes operated with University of Oxford and the Southern Arcs
Council were helpful and enabled us to support artists while they
prepared work for exhibitions. K.G. Subramanyan made all thepaintings for "Fairy Tales of Oxford and Other paintings" while hestayed for three months at St Catherine's College, working every day
in his studio in the roof of the old tower of the Museum. Heri Donofrom Yogyakarta worked in old industrial building in East Oxford
during the winter of 1995/96 preparing his exhibition "Blooming inArms" which took the precarious situation in Indonesia as its main

15

theme . 15 This work was on a vast scale in keeping with the artists'

D. Elliott, G. Tawadros (eds) Heri
Dono, INIVA, London/Museumof Modern Art Oxford 1996.

previous paintings and installations and drew positive Press and

351

Session Ill

Public reaction, however in one particular case this was a little too
positive as a representative from the Indonesian Embassy visited theexhibition after seeing a review in The Times and then demanded thatthe catalogue be withdrawn on the grounds that it made "untrue
statements" about the Military regime. fu the artist was still resident
in Indonesia a compromise was found to settle chis.
fuia has started to become much more of a subject. Fukuoka Art
Museum began making make sporadic surveys of fuian Art from the16
Fukuoka An Museum seems tohave been the first museum tohave made an exhibition ofcontemporaryAsian Arr in 1980,the second took place in 1985 andin 1999 the fifth Asian Art Show
was transformed into the First

FukuokaAsian ArcT riennale.

17
Asia/America: Identities in

beginning of the 1980s, 16 and in 1987 the first Istanbul International
Biennale started although at chis time it did not have an fuianorientation. But things really got moving at the beginning of the
1990s: Vishaka Desai organised a Round Table for curators across thewhole region at the fuia Society in New York in 1992 at which many
people met for the first time, and followed this up with two
exhibitions 17 ; the fuia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art in
Brisbane and a the first compendium on Modernity in fuian art bothContemporary Asian American Art

appeared in 1993 18 ; the Japan Foundation set up its ASEAN Culture( I 994) and Traditiom/Temiom:
Contemporary Art in Asia, (I 996),

Center (reorganized as fuia Center in 1995) in 1990 . Magazines

the latter exhibition was curated

devoted to contemporaty fuian Art were started in Australia andby Apinan Poshyananda.
18

John Clark (ed), Modernity in
Asian Art, Sydney, Wild Peony
Press, I 993.

Hong Kong and since chat time countless books, catalogues andexhibitions devoted to contemporary fuian art have burgeoned
throughout fuia, Europe and America. These and the discourse they
have generated have had a huge effect on curators all over the worldand have signalled a real change in attitude toward s the whole region.
People have become interested.
My position now is that, as Director of the new Mori Art
Museum in Tokyo, I have been living and working in fuia for over a
year -

the boot now is on my other foot and I am part of somethingwhich I used to look at from afar. It is expected that I will bring new
perspectives to running museums in Japan while supporti ng thedifferent culrures of the region and this, as well as showing
unforgettable exhibitions, will be one of my main objectives. The newMuseum, which will open in aurumn 2003, must provide a platform
for East and South East fuian creators to be launched into theinternational arena. A stronger, more critical discourse about
contemporary culrure also has to be generated to encourage a greater
self confidence amongst creators and an urge to engage with theworld at large.
Then, once our own, elegant, and rather differently cut, trousers

Session 111 353

are firmly buttoned up, we can decide for ourselves how we reallywant co dress.

]54

Session Ill

Session III Presentation 2

India in Performance
Anmol Vellani
Executive Director , India Fo undation for the An s

I do not have the knowledge or experience to speak about the'Asia that is represented/Asia that is not represented ' in the arts. It is
hard enough, if nor already too ambitious of me, to reflect on the'India that is represented/India that is not represented' in and throughthe performing arcs. I refer, of course, to the India char might bepresent or absent in, or represented through, Indian performance, andnor other Asian or even non-Asian performance. To make my cask
less daunting, I propose to look at rhe question of representation nor
in relation to all the performing arts, but largely with reference toAnmol Vdlani

theatre in India.
How, then, is India represented in its theatre, and by agencies
that make it their business to present theatre? In looking for ananswer to this question, it might be fruitful to pursue a two-trackinquiry. Firstly, we might want to find out about the 'theatre that isrepresented/theatre that is not represented ' by chose who are
influential in bringing it into wider public view. Are performance
presenters and sponsors -either because of their own perspectives,

partiality or taste, or because of the nature of their audiences, or otheraspects of the context in which they present performances -inclined

to ignore or neglect certain types of theatre and, by implication, theIndia chat these might represent? And what ideas oflndia areprojected or suppressed in their representation of the theatre that they
do present or sponsor?
Secondly, we might need to examine how the marker char exists
for the presentation of theatre, which is controlled by performancepromoters and presenters, itself exerts a strong influence on the
direction, substance and form of Indian theatre , and also on theartistic identities of its practitioners. Beyond this marker, we mayneed to look at other features of the environment to which theatre
adapts, and which, therefore, might have an impact on the India thatis represented or not represented in its theatre.

Session 111 JSS

The second track of our inquiry is important because
performance presenters and sponsors cannot represent an India
through theatre that theatre itself does not represent -unless, ofcourse, they misrepresent che theatre chat they present, or it isdistorted by the context in which it is presented. And theatre, given
its fragile position, is inevitably under strong pressure co tailor itself tothe market, co take its cue from the behaviour of arts patrons anddonors, co 'adjust' to che profile of a targeted audience, or to 'collude'with che dominant politics of nation, language and identity.
To advance along the first track, I would like co flag and discussin turn those presenters and/or sponsors oflndian performance chatare based in India, namely (1) Corporations, (2) Independent festivalorganizers, (3) Government and (4) Local cultural organizations.
(1) Corporations
The business community in India does not see it as its social
responsibility ro assist the arts. Instead the corporate secror draws onmarketing budgets to sponsor exhibitions, performances, arcs festivals
and tours. Image-conscious companies, viewing arts support as abrand promotion strategy, are naturally inclined ro assist the highly
visible, influential, well established, safe and 'respectable' in the arcs
world. In sponsoring arc events and programmes, moreover, theirprimary interest is in reaching audiences that their products target.
Corporations rarely support rural theatre or contemporary
theatre in the various regional languages. Cigarette and liqu orcompanies, however, have a long history of sponsoring Englishlanguage theatre, despite the face chat it is commonly regarded as avestige of colonialism and receives no encouragement from che
government. The reason is simple: it is good for business. These
companies are prohibited from advertising their produces in the print
and electronic media , and see English-language theatre as attracting
the natural clients for their premium brands.
What is more relevant for our purposes, though, is how
companies represent the theatre they sponsor to che audiences theytarget. Consider the most recent example of corporate sponsorsh ip oftheatre. On October 22 this year, McDowell's and Co. of the UBGroup announced its plans co sponsor a series of theatre festivals
under the banner of Signature, one of its more expensive brands ofwhisky. A report in The Asian Age said : "What makes the

JIG

Session Ill

McDowell's theatre fest different from ocher festivals is chat it will
enable .. .cities in che country ... to appreciate theatre from ocher
metros." 1 In an interview in the BangaloreTimes, Mr. Vijay Rekhi,'Gi ving theatre the Signature
tou ch', The Asian Age, O ctober23, 2002.

che President of the UB Group 's Spirits Division, characterized thefirst of these festivals, co be held in Bangalore, as "an effort co bringaudiences here some of che best theatre chat Mumbai has co offer." 2'Audi ences loo k forward to uniqu eentertainment', BangaloreTimes,

October 24, 2002.

Mr. Rekhi did not clarify chat by 'the best theatre' he meant 'thebest English-language
theatre'. Ac no point did the report in the ocher
newspaper make chis important qualification either. Surely Mr. Rekhi
is aware chat English is not che only language of contemporary theatrein Mumbai, although he may not know chat it is possibly che only
city in the world where major theatre activity is pursued in four
languages -Marathi, Gujarati and Hindi, apart from English.

Surely, coo, he is aware chat che best theatre co be found in Mumbai is
not necessarily in English.
Mr. Rekhi's unqualified statements, however, are unlikely co bechallenged by che audience he is addressing. Mose of the people whowill be looking forward co che Signature Theatre Festival only see
plays in English. His erasure of theatre in ocher languages will not be
noticed by an audience in whose mental landscape such theatre does
not exist. It is an audience chat belongs co a world sealed off from chesocial milieu and urban realities within which theatre in languages
ocher chan English operates. English-language theatre reflects thesocial isolation of its audience, both in its content (largely Western
plays) and how ic is represented -as if no theatre exists in India

apart from it.
Corporate sponsors are able co represent English-language theatrein this fashion because of the profile of chat theatre 's audience. Put
simply, chey represent che theatre they sponsor in the way its audiencewould represent it. It is not surprising that corporations should do so:
afrer all, they sponsor arc to fulfill che desires and expectations of che
consumers of their produces.
But how widespr ead is this phenomenon? Are Indian theatre
presenters, and not just corporate sponsors, also as influenced by che
profile of their audiences in deciding what theatre co present and how
co represent it? Are theatre artists similarly passive, taking their leadfrom che existing market in determining how co shape or represent
their work? Are traditional forms of theatre modified by theirrepresentatives co suit the audiences chat they wish co attract for

SessionIll

JS)them?
(2) Independent Festival Organizers
Corporate sponsorship, I have said, favours Indian theatre in
English, but there is an exception to this rule. Companies also
support theatre festivals, fearuring productions in different languages,
which are organized by independent arcs groups . Corporations
associate themselves with such theatre festivals because they attract
larger audiences and make a bigger splash in the media.
There are only rwo independent theatre festivals in India that areheld on a regular basis. One is the Prithvi Theatre Festival in
Mumbai, which has gathered momentum since the early 1990s, andnow takes place almost every year, sometimes travelling to other cities
as well. The Festival does not have a consistent character: it can belocal or national in scope, and one year it was exclusively devoted toEuropean theatre. But when it goes national, the Festival
accommodates Indian theatre in the broadest sense. In 1997, forexample, it showcased a wide range of contemporary theatre indifferent languages, and even featured the work of a dance group anda folk narrative performance. The second is the Nandikar National
Theatre Festival in Kolkata, which is older but smaller. Organized bya local theatre group every year since the early 1980s, it presents
theatre from across India and occasionally also from other countries
in South Asia.
The dissimilarities berween the rwo festivals are less significant
than what they have in common. An independent theatre festival in
India, or its various editions , might exist for different purposes . For
instance, it might want to counter the state's perspective on Indian
theatre , presenting work that is ignored by the government . It mightwant to bring neglected aspects oflndian theatre to the fore. Or it
might want to present work focused on specific experiences andaspirations, which mainstream theatre does not portray. But Prithvi
and Nandikar 's choice of productions does not appear to be driven bya particular position on Indian theatre, or an interest in making a
specific intervention in the field, or even a desire to forge a definite
identity for their respective festivals.
As a result, these festivals sport a bland 'neutrality'. It is neverclear on what basis a theatre group or production might find itself
excluded from their purview in any year. It is not any developed

358

SessionIl lconcept or specific terms of reference for the festival that determine
the choice of productions in any year, bur the reputation of thetheatre group, or the popularity of its lase production at the festival,or the word-of-mouth about its most recent work. The Direcror ofche Nandikar National Theatre Festival has called me on more than
one occasion to ask: Seen any good productions lately?
But in chinking chat chis is the key question to ask in selecting
productions for a national theatre festival in a country like India, he ismaking some assumptions about Indian theatre and its audience. He
is assuming chat the urban middles classes all over India, which form
the bulk of the audience for contemporary theatre, have a sharedaesthetic, and chat Indian theatre is sufficiently homogenous acrossthe country not to need unraveling for his audience. He is assuming,in effect, chat Indian theatre is not as diverse as the contexts in which
it is created!
The Festival Director's assumptions are not entirely groundless.
For various reasons that I will not explain here, much ofcontemporary urban theatre in India has a sameness about it, andboasts a striking similarity in its concerns, which is somewhat
surprising in a country as diverse as India. The theatre productions
seen at festivals in India are mostly based on familiar myths, legends
and histories, simple folk tales, classical Sanskrit plays, or the personal
dilemmas and ocher issues chat the middle classes commonly confront
in the country. The India chat is represented in the theatre of thefestival circuit, therefore, is by and large an India chat is shared by its
middle classes. It is a theatre chat speaks to what unifies the middle
classes, not to chose aspects of their identity chat might set chem apartbecause of regional differences of language, history and culture.
This is not to say chat all contemporary theatre in India isconnected to the shared world and imagination of the middle classes.
There is theatre that grapples with its immediate environment, and is
deeply engaged with very local sensibilities, history, concerns andworldviews, but for chat very reason, a great deal of the import andsignificance chat it might have in its own context, for its own
audience, will be lose on the national stage. If such theatre finds its
way into a national festival, and it sometimes does, it is by accident.
Festival directors would not knowingly invite a production whose
meaning or relevance is not accessible to their audiences. Theirinterest is in showing 'good' productions, not in presenting theatre

SessionIl l319

that needs to be 'translated' for their audiences. In other words, they
are not consciously committed to opening a window to the multiple
and different realities oflndia that might be found in its theatre.
(3) Government
The national government is both a sponsor and a presenter ofIndian theatre. With funding from the Department of Culture, theNational School of Drama (NSD) has been hosting Bharat Rang
Mahotstav, an annual national theatre festival, in Delhi since 1999.
This huge festival presented 144 performances in 2002.
There is little to distinguish Bharat Rang Mahotsav from theindependent theatre festivals except its size. One will search in vain in
the voluminous publication that accompanied the 2002 edition of thefestival for a statement of guiding principles or perspectives to offset
the distinct impression that utter arbitrariness and lack of
discrimination was involved in the choice of productions.
Instead the publication carries many introductory statements byministers, bureaucrats, NSD office-bearers and a 'media critic', which
reveal an obsession with statistics. What is repeatedly underscored is
how many plays are being performed, from how many states, and in
how many languages. What matters is that the festival is "the biggest
ever organized ... in the country" 3 and that it is growing in size every
year. 4 What is important is to establish that the festival is as widelyrepresentative and inclusive as possible, presumably to demonstrate
the government's impartialiry and evenhandedness. The festival
embraces every conceivable kind of contemporary theatre. Even
political street theatre, which has been staunchly and consistently
anti-government in its stance, finds a place. State sponsorship of street
theatre would have been unimaginable a few years back.
The government's concern to appear neutral in the field of
theatre is of recent origin. For many years it aggressively promoted'indigenous' contemporary theatre. In the 1980s, the Sangeet NatakAkademi, the state's agency for the promotion of the performing arts,
supported directors to develop stage productions based on folk
performance forms in their respective regions, and presented those
productions at regional and national festivals. This was expected tolead to the emergence of a contemporary theatre that was 'genuinely'
Indian, chasing away the 'unfortunate' spell that Western dramaturgy
had cast over it. A preoccupation with the question of identiry lay

360

Session Ill

Bharat RangMahotstav IV - An
Overview (NSD, 2002) p. viii.

4
Ibid., p. xii.

behind the state's encouragement of the 'theatre of the roots', as it
was called. 5
For an insightful critique of the'theatre of the roots', see Rustom
Bharucha's 'Notes on theInvention of Tradition' in Theatre& The World:Essayson
Peifonnance& Politicsof Culture(Manoh ar, 1990), especially pp.
266-270.

Direcrors who constructed their artistic identities to accord with
the norms of the 'theatre of the roots' also benefited from thegovernment's partiality for representing and promoting their work at
international festivals. Celebrating 'Indian-ness ' rather than engaging
critically with India's present realities, this theatre projects India toforeign audiences as folksy and exotic, attached to a pre-modern past,
instead of as a society confronting the contradictions and strains ofbeing tribal, feudal, modern and post-modern all at once. Missing,
too, from this officially sanctioned theatre, and its portrayal of India,
is an acknowledgement of the existence of overlapping and mixed
identities, the syncretizing and hybridizing impulses in Indian culture ,and the history of cultural interconnections that cross the current
political boundaries of the states of India , These realities cannot berecognized in a contemporary Indian theatre that derives its impetus
from the politics oflanguage and regional identity.
The government's support for the 'theatre of the roots', although
now withdrawn (partly I suspect on account of the controversy andcriticism it generated), has left its mark. It spawned a generation of
directors whose theatre primarily addresses national and international
audiences . They recreate a tired theatre formula, using and reusing afamiliar range of techniques and conventions to retain their hold on a
distant market for their products. They are least concerned about
whether their productions hold meaning for audiences in their
immediate environment. Not surprisingly, some of them arecelebrated nationally and internationally , but meet with indifference
if not hostility in their own states because their work is seen as far
removed from local issues, concerns and realities.
The 'theatre of the roots' relies heavily on physical movement ,group composition and visual spectacle to achieve wide recognition
and acclaim outside the regions in which it is produced. Mr. Balwant
Thakur, the director ofNatrang, a leading theatre group in Jammu,
defends the minimal use of language in his theatre on the very
grounds that the "conception realized through the body of actors
becomes more communicable than the power of the word. I want to

6'In Search of a New Living

Theatre', The Hindu, June 22,
2001.

break the language barrier. Images have their own language, poetic
sensibility and universality." 6 But how can the images that Mr.
Thakur uses in his theatre, which would need to be rather simple to

SessionIll361

communicate universally, possibly explore the specific, compl ex andtragic realities ofJammu ? How , without drawing on the power oflanguage, can his theatre speak with any depth and nuance about thephysical and psychological scars of a people living constantl y in the
shadow of terrorism ? Is it surprising that Natrang 's theatre is silent on
the very subjects that one would expect it to speak most about ?
(4) Local Cultural Organizations:
The contemporary 'theatre of the roots' is not alone inconstructing itself with a national or international audience primarily
in view. Traditional theatre has also modified itself to overcome its
essentially regional appeal. Phillip Zarrilli has described two initiatives
undertaken by local cultural organizations to create a new style ofKarhakali, the celebrated dance-drama form of Kerala, for audiences
outside the state. 7 The specific reinvention ofKathakali in both7

instances, Zarrilli suggests, is driven by a desire " to make Kathakali a

See his 'A Tradition of Change:
The Role of Patrons and'universally' communicable art form." 8 Thus, for example, realistic

Patro nage in Kathakali D ance-

Western conventions of staging have been introduced, the use oflanguage has been minimized, and the emotions of everyday life havebeen emphasized .
Zarrilli observes that "rather than attempting to 'educate' the newaudience into received conventions and traditions ," the two makeovers

Dr ama' in Arts Patronagein India:
Methods,M otives and Markets,
edit ed by Joan L. Erdm an(Man ohar, 1992), especially pp .
130- 1408
Ibid. , p. 132 .

of Kathakali "choose to alter and adapt the system itself to meet what
they think the new audi~nce wishes to see and appreciate." 9 In other9

words, both seek to enable new audiences to have unmedi ated access

Ibid ., p. 135.

to Kathakali.

10

It is worth recalling that the contemporary 'theatre of

the roots' has exactly the same aspiration -to create theatre that

does not need to be further elucidated or unpacked for any audience.
Ir is clear, too, that theatre festival authorities, wheth er private or
public , do not see it as their role to 'educate' their audience . Instead
they expect the theatre that they present to speak for itself. Thi sgeneral unwillingnes s to rake on the responsibility forconceptualizing , curating and educating, results in a failure tocommunicate the complexity and difference of specific theatr e
productions and traditions. But, more seriously, it goes hand in handwith a regrettable tendency to create and present theatr e that avoids
complexity and difference.
Ir might be argued that often there is no option to reconstructing
forms of pre-modern performance to bring them 'closer' to new

361

Session Il l

IO
For another exampl e of thedeliberate reinvent io n of

traditi o nal theatre for new
audiences, see Ruscom Bharuch a's'No tes on the Invention of

T radition' in Theatre & The
World: Essayson Pe,fonnance &Politics of Culture (Ma no har,1990), especially pp. 26 1-266.

audiences or make them viable in new contexts of performance .
Mediation will not help in the case of performance forms chat simply
cannot be presented to audiences and in contexts ocher than theirown without serious distortion . This is because the import andmeaning of certain forms is almost entirely derived from theircommunity setting, and closely tied to rituals of worship, rices of
passage, festivals, and the rhythms of life.
Noc chat chis has prevented the government from presenting
Theyyam, for instance, to audiences abroad as a dance form .
Theyyam is in fact a ritual performative form of Kerala, throughwhich gods, demons, epic characters, snakes, demons, spirits,
ancestors or heroes are invoked and worshipped to fulfill various
human desires or avoid particular hazards and perils. Even local
cultural groups in Kerala have taken to describing Theyyam as adance form. Such a description, by suggesting chat Theyyam requires
spectators rather than participants, facilitates its consumption byunsuspecting audiences from far and beyond. What it is about
Theyyam chat might be concealed by chis new description , or lost in
the new context in which it is presented, is usually passed over insilence. If the government must decontexualize Theyyam, the least it
owes to the 'performer' and his 'audience' is to explain how chis ' representation' distorts the identity of the form. Otherwise it would bereasonable for the audience to assume chat it is witnessing a fairly
faithful simulation of the original context of a Theyyam'performance ' . In such a presentation ofTheyyam, where liccle
attempt is made to represent the form in ocher ways, the counterfeit
parades as the real.
In pursuing the first line of our inquiry , we have perforce had tomake reference to issues chat had been reserved for discussion as partof our second crack. We have indicated how some performance
presenters and sponsors exercise a strong influence on thedevelopment oflndian theatre. Equally, we have suggested chattheatre of its own accord is given to marking out a course for itself
chat is in line with an imagined, projected or real audience or market
for its offerings. Are there other forces or circumstances to which
theatre adapts, and restticts the India chat it is capable ofrepresenting?
I have already had occasion to mention the policies of language

SessionIll]6]and regional identity, although I have only made passing reference toits possible role in shaping the agenda of contemporary Indian
theatre. I would like, in closing, to elaborate on how and why its
influence on Indian theatre is indeed more profound than the
behaviour of sponsors, presenters, audiences or markets. This is so
because it has shaped how theatre people define and even fabricate
their artistic identity.
Since linguistic criteria have determined the political boundaries
oflndian states, language has become an increasingly important
marker of identity. A state government's awards, scholarships andgrants in the field of culture and the arts are reserved for individuals
who can be 'recognized' as belonging to the state by virtue of theirmother tongue. Artists and arts groups also require the endorsementof their respective state governments to access much of the funding
available from the national government. And the government, onemust not forget, is far and away the largest source of assistance for thearts.
To attract public funds, therefore, theatre artists and groups needto establish that they belong to, and their work is rooted in, the statein which they reside. Ir is rare to find an artist with a mixed identity,
with parents hailing from different states, being projected or
promoted by any state government. To find favour with the state
government, however, it is more crucial for theatre persons toestablish their regional bona fides through the nature of their
theatrical ourput. Their theatre must be conducted in the official
language of the state. It helps, too, if the themes and style of theirproductions have an identifiably regional character.
As a result, Indian theatre or production -whether in the area of playwriting

has rarely reflected the multilingual realities of thecountry. In Bangalore, for instance, many people speak four
languages. It is also rourine for Indians to shift constantly between
one language and another in the course of a conversation.
Furthermore, we are now witnessing a remarkable and growinginterpenetration between languages. This is leading to a kind of
creolization, such as is represented by Hinglish, which is a coming
together of Hindi and English. In Hinglish, almost every sentence
will contain words drawn from both of the source languages. Hinglish
is becoming the language of youth in many parts of India.
Advertising, MTV, soap operas and popular cinema in India mirror

164

Sessoon Illchis linguistic phenomenon as well as contribute co its further growthand development. By comparison, the language of theatre seems
caught in a time warp, cue off from how many Indians actuallyconverse today. How people speak, moreover, is a reflection of how
they see themselves. Bue Indian theatre is unable co come co terms
with, lee alone capture an India defined by these new and altering
identity formations.
The policies oflanguage also drives theatre anises co suppress
their own multiple or overlapping identities, resulring in a kind of'self' denial. If their self has been formed by mixed linguistic origins,
ic will not, in all likelihood, be revealed in their work. (le isinteresting, coo, chat Indian theatre, while ic might address caste or
religious conflicts, does not focus on the personal conflicts of people
with mixed caste or religious backgrounds.) Nor do the new identities
chat people acquire by icinerancy, displacement or emigration findexpression in theatre . Still co emerge in Indian playwriting andproduction is work chat explores, say, che experience of people fromone Indian state seeded in another, or the predicament of someone
from the Indian Diaspora who chooses co return 'home'. Mose
noticeably, anises are under pressure co exorcise the West chat is in
chem, co disown the impact oflndia's colonial history on theiridentity/identities. Noc surprisingly, therefore, Indian theatre haslacked protagonists who see themselves as belonging co many places atonce or co no place at all.

If the India chat spans different worlds, or occupies the interstices
between them, has not found proper or full expression in its theatre,
it is at lease parcly because playwrights, directors and actors here havenot allowed their real selves contradictory -partitioned, unresolved and often

co speak through their arc. Their work, as aconsequence, disregards che world chat many Indians inhabit -aworld of divided loyalties, of hyphenated existences, of identities coo
versatile co be co-opted, of tensions and conflicts buc also of new
visions and freedoms chat come from belonging on che margins.

Session 111 ]65