Symposium on art appreciation

Kochi, Feb 7 (PTI) Regional languages acquire their lines of authority when juxtaposed against ones that acquired a national status and a couple of historical events have had a say in this churning process, speakers at a seminar here said. The post-Independence unification of India as a single country and its subsequent divisions as states on a linguistic basis did play a role in shaping the literary contours of the nation even when it came to appreciation of art, according to a keynote address at the symposium organised by Asia Art Archive (AAA) in association with Kochi-Muziris Biennale here yesterday. Prof Susie Tharu of the English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU), Hyderabad, observed at the seminar on 'Asia Art Archive Fields of Legibility: Disciplines and Practices of Art Writing in India' that writing in regional languages lent a stamp of authenticity if the subject was on the state's art. Also, alphabetisation led to a certain standardisation when it came to curation, she added. "All formal changes in literature come from outside -not from within," said Tharu, who is with the Department of Cultural Studies at EFLU, in her talk on 'Learning A Vernacular: Friendships, Conversations, Practice'. "Capturing of today's art happens from a constant alert to every movement that you witness or experience." In a subsequent discussion on 'Writing on the Nation, Writing in the Vernacular', speakers discussed the regional specificities of art writing, the possible ways of reading those texts today and positioning them for the future. Saloni Mathur of the Department of Art History at University of California spoke on how the 1947 Partition continues to haunt the art narrative in both India and Pakistan. Prof Gulammohammed Sheikh, a well-known artist from Baroda, noted how the ongoing biennale has managed to retell the people's long-lost link with this ancient port city of Muziris by "opening the godowns of Kochi". The three-month festival has led to the creation of an archive by eminently blending art with history, added the 75-year-old scholar who is also involved in the movement of modern Gujarati literature.(MORE) PTI UD BN DV MVV