An artful collaborator: behind the scenes with Waswo X Waswo

From 'The Intruder (A series of twenty intrusions), Waswo X. Waswo and R. Vijay, Gouache on vintage Curry and Rice lithographs by George Franklin Atkinson, Collections.

The word "karkhana" in Hindi means factory but I guess American artist Waswo X Waswo meant it as an atelier when he titled his fifth book Karkhana – A Studio in Rajasthan. For those not familiar with the US-born and Udaipur-based Waswo, he is a photographer, writer and an artist who has collaborated with a bunch of talented artists from Rajasthan since mid-2000. Collectors know him as the chief collaborator of a small artistic team who create hand-painted staged photographs and miniature paintings.

Art historian Dr Annapurna Garimella in the introductory note describes the book as “…a journey into Waswo X Waswo’s Karkhana in Udaipur and his reminiscences about the team of artists he has worked with for 15 years.”

Waswo had initially conceived the book as a ‘picture book’ but later, through the pandemic when the artists had to work separately and yet in unison, he visualised it as a more elaborate explanation of how the ‘Studio in Rajasthan’ team has worked and partied together, how they've sometimes struggled and fought, but always, in the end, remained friends and co-workers.

The large book is divided into sections: A Possible Udaipur Morning, A Possible Udaipur Afternoon, A Possible Varda Evening, The Night, The Dream and more. Waswo writes simply and descriptively of small moments and big results. He writes about the simple joys of friendship, his pride on seeing his collaborators flourish, a regrettable fight, the quirks of the team members, and tidbits of the local scene, like rumours of a crocodile sighting in Swaroop Sagar lake in Udaipur...

We learn that the Karkhana has specific roles for everyone: Dalpat Jhingar does the painted backdrops for the photographs, R. Vijay does the miniature painting, Rajesh Soni is a third-generation photo handcolourist, and Shankar Kumawat and his son Chirag are the border artists – making a merry “Rock Band”.

Waswo said, “I never set out with the goal of forming a Karkhana. It evolved quite naturally as my work evolved and I found I wanted to express new ideas from different perspectives. It began with asking R. Vijay to make a short series of miniatures that depicted me as the photographer, a suite that was meant to accompany a proposed showing of my early photographic work.”

That photographer in the miniatures is the Fedora Man, initially intended to represent Waswo, always wearing a fedora hat, no matter in what his state of undress or dress in the artwork. “But as time has gone on, he has become his own character. He’s a sort of Everyman…a bumbling but well-intentioned foreigner facing a new and perplexing land and culture. Some people even assume that he is Indian these days!”

The book has large tiles of the works, some representing the studios of the team members, some of Waswo’s popular photographs and miniature painting series and the Karkhana’s interventions done on vintage lithographs by George Franklin Atkinson. The latter, called ‘The Intruder’ series, have the Fedora Man painted by R. Vijay in a variety of humourous situations.

This series is quite clever and pokes fun at someone who, in turn, is poking fun. Waswo explained the series: “In his book, Atkinson made satire of the British colonialists living in a mythical town named 'Kabob'. He poked great fun at the British, but at the time, I felt his images were also racist, containing very stereotypical portrayals of Indians. So, I felt an affinity to this body of work, but also a disconnect. R. Vijay and I decided to make simple interventions upon the lithographs, inserting our Fedora Man into a variety of situations. At times he subverts Atkinson’s images, and at other times he harmonizes with them. The result is a satire of a satire, and an entire new narrative develops.”

Just like the book, which features both of their popular series, the Karkhana’s latest series, ‘A Visitor to the Court’, is a mix of handcoloured photographs and miniature paintings, making it difficult to decipher which genre the works fit into. Waswo says it bothers him that the audience splits for photographs and miniature paintings is split. “Yet in my mind the two are not separate series.”

Even though the book details the story of the Rock Band, Waswo calls it one of the many stories of Mewar. “It is a very Udaipur tale; filled with wonder, growth, and camaraderie.” Dalpat Jhingar’s Workshop, 2021.

I would like to be remembered as a man who did my best in what was to me strange and unusual circumstances. I’d like my entire team to be remembered as well. Together we have worked magic, while also becoming close friends.

Homoeroticism has actually very rarely crept into my work. I don’t want to be pegged as a “gay artist”, as I know our art is much broader in scope than that. When the subject does come up, though, as it is a part of my life, and the character in the paintings’ life, my teammates have had no qualms in depicting what I conceive. Udaipur is a very open-minded and tolerant place. That is one reason that I love living here.

Most galleries tell the artists to hide their “craftsmen”, and fabricators seldom get acknowledged. Galleries are very concerned about name recognition since this is a matter of branding: making it simple for collectors and audience to recognize and understand. I had to fight to get both R. Vijay and Rajesh Soni some public recognition in the early days. They both sign the works, as well as myself. As the Karkhana expanded, it became a problem though. How can four people all sign the same work? It just gets too confusing. Everyone has their own needs and goals. For instance, Dalpat does not crave fame and is happy to remain in the background, whereas both Rajesh and Rakesh want a share of the spotlight. We have navigated it as best we can. You could say that our “branding” is this ability to be very open about the collaborative nature of our work. Perhaps the collaborative process itself has become the branding.

From 'The Intruder' series of works by Waswo X. Waswo and R. Vijay.