This grant supports art historian and visual artist Khushboo Bharti to undertake research towards a monograph and exhibition on the impact of the Rajasthan government’s patronage of and policy on public art projects in Jaipur. The monograph will examine the reasons for the surge in state-commissioned public art works in the last ten years and how these works reflect a larger political and cultural ideology. The exhibition will include photographs and a map of public art projects in Jaipur.

The election of the BJP government in 2000 saw the completion of many bridge construction projects and the restoration of dilapidated walls in various parts of the city. “This government, for the first time, commissioned multiple contemporary artists from Rajasthan, mainly from Jaipur to paint some of these bridges and walls,” says Khushboo. The selected artists came from varied backgrounds—some were traditional miniature painters, others were artists working in the abstract style. “But the  strict directive given by the government on the themes and topics meant that artists who work with abstract or semi-abstract style had to undermine that style and incorporate the figurative form in their work,” says Khushboo. Thus the individual styles of the artists is invisible in the public art works commissioned by the government. Instead, they comply with a popular figurative idiom prevalent in the traditional karkhana paintings in and around Jaipur.

Along with the study of paintings in public spaces, Khushboo’s research will also examine the two distinct categories under which sculptures are displayed. The first category comprises naturalistic and unostentatious commemorative sculptures, for example, the life-size sculptures of Maharaja Sawai Mansingh and Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh displayed along with those of Jyotiba Phule, Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi at Ravindra Manch. “The second category,” says Khushboo, are “highly ostentatious in their approach with an emphasis on details, and are sculptural tableaus around the theme of festivals and the culture of Jaipur.” Apart from the formal elements of public art, the monograph will analyse the effect of each new government’s changing policy on the content, form and location of the public art projects in the city.

The work commissioned by each new political party that came into power reflected their political agenda. For instance, the Congress party mainly commissioned commemorative sculptures and portraits of important Congress leaders or social reformers. Under the BJP, however, a large group of sculptures which reflect the festivals of Jaipur were commissioned. Thus in these commissions, the Congress gave importance to past leaders, while the BJP emphasised the cultural symbols from the past and the present. The public location of these paintings and sculptures is also noteworthy: most of the works commissioned by the Congress are positioned in front of prominent government building whereas the works commissioned by the BJP are located close to heritage sites or on major tourist routes.

These state commissioned art works are thus a critical record of a larger political and cultural discourse, which is important to decipher in order to understand policy changes which affect art production, its location and aesthetics in Jaipur. Khushboo will interview government officials who facilitated the production of various paintings and sculptures in public places. She will also document the opinions and concerns of artists and artisans with regard to state-commissioned public art.

Khushboo will map the locations of all the state-commissioned art in the public spaces. This map, along with images of the public artworks, will form part of a curated exhibition. The exhibition will provide a visual record of how public artworks have changed over the last few years. Portraits of artists and craftsmen who created these arts works will also be displayed. The exhibition will precede the writing and publication of the monograph. This was a suggestion made by Jeebesh Bagchi, one the evaluators of Khushboo’s proposal. Jeebesh was of the opinion that the monograph would be enriched if the process of curating the exhibition, and the learning derived from the experience, were included in it.

 

This description is part of the institutional records created by IFA at the onset of the grant. The project may have changed in due course as reflected in the deliverables from the Grantee.