Painting … another way of keeping a diary?
Shamsad Mortuza welcomes a new work on Bangladesh's art
Nazrul Islam's collection of essays on Bangladeshi art is a diary that paints the journey of contemporary painting and sculpture. Islam uses his privileged position of witnessing the growth of art in Bangladesh, a topic that he has been exploring for the last few decades. The volume, Contemporary Art and Artists: Bangladesh and Beyond, therefore, is a welcome publication as it reviews the works of key artists who have established Bangladeshi art on the international art scene. There are individual pieces on Zainul Abedin, Abdur Razzaque, Abu Taher, Shakoor, Farida Zaman, Hamiduzzaman Khan, Ivy Zaman, Ranjit Das and Mustapha Khalid Palash. This list suggests that Islam has covered a broad spectrum of artists, and has not confined himself to some obvious names. In addition, Islam has included pieces that trace the rich heritage of art in Bengal, understand the link between architectural design and art, consider the mediation of art and nature by local artists, and focus on emerging popular culture such as rickshaw painting. The formal inception of what we know as Bangladeshi art began in 1948, with the establishment of the Government Institute of Arts in 1948 with Shilpacharya Zainul Abedin at its helm. In post-Partition East Pakistan, the pioneers of Bangladeshi art had to tread a fine balance between the Bengal School of Abanindranath and the Calcutta School of Jamini Roy in order to find an accent that would capture local sites and sights. Bangladeshi artists had the additional responsibility of negotiating with the dominant modes of western art, such as symbolism, expressionism, surrealism or impressionism. In short, the challenge for the pioneers of Bangladeshi artists was earning a niche on the international art scene while distinguishing them from other practitioners of art in the subcontinent. Islam's introductory piece, "Painting and Sculpture in Bangladesh", is a nugget of art history in Bangladesh. It reminds us of a tradition that goes beyond the formal institutional beginning of our art. He briskly touches on the pre- and post-Mughal art works to retrace the early periods of art in Bengal. The following piece, "Artists on the Sixties", is a brief interlude that contextualizes some of the art practitioners. It is no surprise then that the discussion on individual artists begins with Zainul Abedin. Islam focuses mainly on the life of Abedin whose interpretation of the Bengal famine signaled the dawning of a new era of art. Islam's style in almost all the essays remains biographical, with occasional comments on individual art work by the artists concerned. This is probably because of the fact that many of the pieces included in the volume were written either as catalogue entries from certain exhibitions or as exhibition reviews that Islam wrote for different journals or dailies. His descriptive and historio-biographical style displays his knack for introducing a painter in simple language. As an urban planner, Islam's interest in the relationship between art and painting is evident in essays such as "The City in Modern Art of Bangladesh", "Art and Environment", "Disaster and Women", "Rickshaw Art of Bangladesh". Islam demonstrates his skill as a researcher as he incorporates facts and figures to establish his point. It is not so often you get to see quantitative measures in an art review. But Islam shows us, for instance, how the representation of natural hazards remains remote in the art work displayed by artists in the nine Art Biennales that have taken place in Bangladesh. He expresses his amazement at the fact that "even in the exhibitions which closely followed …catastrophic hazards as the 1987 and 1988 floods, the number of works on such themes (was) quite few." This is a surprise finding as one would expect an artist to respond to the phenomena of her/his time. Islam lists four categories of impressionistic, symbolic, abstract and semi-abstract paintings or sculptures on natural hazards that Bangladeshi artists have produced, but somehow these art works do not find themselves in international exhibitions. The analytical piece thus hints at a politics of representation without actually spelling it out for readers. In one of the most interesting pieces of the volume, Islam presents rickshaw art as a mobile museum that blurs the boundary between high art and popular art. Rickshaw paintings cover a wide array of themes that range from Kalighata Pot or scroll painting to scenes from popular films. However, the recent rise of digital printing is fast becoming a threat to one of the liveliest forms of art. The reproduction of some coloured plates as an addendum to the volume is a visual aid for the reader. However, one feels that these pieces could have been included in the main body of the volume instead of being marginalized. Nevertheless, Nazrul Islam's Contemporary Art: Bangladesh and Beyond remains a significant contribution to our art (hi)story; surely it will encourage readers to engage with painters and sculptors of Bangladesh and to go beyond the national and notional landscape of Bangladeshi art with a solid understanding of our own heritage.
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