The banality of a suspect transcendence
Wakilur Rahman’s “Unearthing the Archaic” exhibits a curious forensic fervour in the way an autopsy has been performed on the anatomy of the boat. Reconstructing the dismantled parts of a vessel which is already laden with anthro-socio-cultural values associated with a specific region, to not only resurrect a nuanced preamble of life-art inseparability but to also walk the revivalist path of incubating the ‘aura’ of the pre-modern within an unabashedly modern (passing for contemporary, though no conflict implied) structure of the Bengal Shilpalay, in itself is no mean feat. The exhibition space has been transformed consciously to enable a cultic or sacral/metaphysical experience. This observation is made, cuing on Walter Benjamin’s ‘Work of Art in the Age of Technological Reproducibility’. Benjamin stresses in his seminal essay on the sacrosanct ‘authenticity’ of a work which manifests as an aura emanating from its embeddedness in the cultic/ritualistic traditions of a specific social context. The boats seen in this exhibition, at first glance, strikes the senses with its dramatic monumentality as relics unearthed from the recesses of a fading mnemonic lineage connecting us to a longed-for yet tenuous sense of past. The title of the exhibition, in the same vein, harks back to the archaic, perhaps to an antiquity which is reductively objectified simply by memorializing a disjointed aura hallowing the de/re-formed boats. Since the remains of the boat reassembled to fit the secular(?), pragmatic criteria of cohesion between form, material, space and light, inside a thoroughly modern exhibition space, conversely, splits the boats from there aura. Where art is concerned, aura hangs loose as a spectre of an ‘authentic past’ or the dawn of an ontology as well as a foundation for a future implicated in boats-as-metaphors for apparently a fragile sense of cultural identity. More so , since this commune-identity is staged at manifold removal both in time and space, manipulated and manufactured through interventional reconstruction using a singular language (three-dimensional objects) to represent a desirable past; notwithstanding the modern, aesthetic sensibility steering the entire course. On the other hand, one can charitably and rightly so infer this to be an aesthetic act, a tooling of imagination in the service of an idea made flesh– a recalling of living tradition.
Wakil’s forensic unearthing seems cursorily to be motivated by a will to stabilize the shaky grounds of knowledge of the self and its relationship with the environment as a means for a reassurance of belonging. Yet, the dominance of the boat as a sovereign entity, which wistfully and artfully attempts to encompass the complex phenomena of life’s plight encapsulated in multiple, layered assemblage unfolding as a process of undoing and re-doing is still an act potent with possibilities, however partially explored. The paradox of redeeming an ‘aura’/sublime from across the plane of calculated spatial and formal arrangement of scattered objects poised as cumulative subtexts to a narrative of the dehotori ,( a coinage to be understood in light of the imagery surrounding the boat as linked with affect or emotion serving to capture the significance the world carries for us) only serves to heighten the intrigue of a tug between intellect and a system of belief, between the metaphysical and the representational ; hence, pushing a modern phenomenon of a split self.
The exhibition draws on the anima of a certain environment, home to a distinct way of life perceived and imagined through the testament of intertextuality erected in Unearthing the Archaic.
Behind the ‘seen’
The exhibition space albeit, appearing like a mausoleum, also on closer engagement brings to mind the ground reality of a toiling class enamoured of the feeling of wet mud between the toes, the unique scent of the surroundings, cruising vessels upon vast expanse of the moody waters. In our cultural memory, this experientiality yields a sense of melancholy, separation, a surrender to the call of a journey– suspending one’s feet off the ground, setting oneself afloat. The vessel becomes both a means and an end, serving as a shelter against formless liquidity, a dissolution of body-boat-water –a transcendence. Wakil also discusses how the objects, particularly parts of boats, had transformed periodically throughout their journey from their home in the Sundarbans, Khulna to the towering hall of Bengal Shilpalay, and during other stops along the way, including the workshop where the dislocated objects underwent a cognito-aesthetic reconfiguration. The migration from place to place and adaptation to varied environmental conditions helped foster an intimate understanding between the artist and his works which somewhat mitigated its belaboured, final settling down in an urban gallery space, a ‘purportedly’ deviant white cube.
Subjected to the architectural constraints of a defined space, the installations were made to resign to the concept of volume in void. To add to the theatricality, lighting and staging of the objects were carefully calibrated to create a sense of openness while negotiating the imposing structure of the gallery. Wakil’s characteristic ‘minimalist’ approach seem to have been usurped in view of the complex structures, barring the empty walls.
Reappraisal of the logos and pathos of Manan Khanan
The boat being analogous with the body is reminiscent of the notion of anima mundi, the ensoulment of the material world, or simply, the belief that matter is alive. This also runs counter with what has become the modern mantra of Anthropos, separating humans in his desolation from the quintessence of the animated world, rendering it a ‘toolshed’ of dead materials to be appropriated to advance material culture.
Carl G Jung, a believer in earth-based religion , which in contemporary consciousness might translate as deep ecology of earth’s insinuation in a larger reality of spirit, interconnecting every element there is in a synergic osmosis. By dismantling the dualism of earth and spirit, Jung advanced the notion of spiritual immanence, which Meredith Sabini summarized as , “Matter is the tangible exterior of things and spirit the invisible interior.”
Now, to what extent do we find the reflection of this animated boat (dehotori) or its fragments in the objects of Manan Khanan or how might the deho-toris on display be perceived? If we are led to understand that they are representative of the pervasive pre-modern patterns of thought (with reference to the title) that existed in this part of the world before the violent disruption of colonialism erupted in a disharmony within a psyche which was spiritually lodged into the earth, air, water, of its environment, then the shredded carcases resurrected in carefully constructed forms elucidates a modern/urban appropriation and archival of a living, although decimated tradition. What is recreated , or so one might say, is the mystique of nostalgia, where memory has run its course right before it meets the present in a tribute to the ‘lost’, denying its perpetuation through the interpellation of past-present-future. Is thought (or knowing?) the ‘animating principle’ which directs human action, and is seamlessly born of and borne by its intimation of the kadamati-jol-hawa of the deltaic region? One would rather coax ‘affect’ into the fold which is reverberated in bhatiali’s sonic embodiment of a boatman’s metaphoric journey underlying the Vaisnava-Sahajia gyan of the peripheral communities. How does it resurface via Wakil’s aesthetic reformulation?
What dominates the panoramic display of three-dimensional objects is the choreography of shadows on the ground within a shifting chiaroscuro as the natural light passing through the shaded glass-panes changes throughout the course of the day. The gallery, thus reorients itself to the formulated vaastu or the visual ambience, via an interplay between predominant form and subservient content—in the way of a unilinear , ‘excavated’ mystic surrounding boats relegated to a negotiation of architectural space.
The boats are taken apart, painted over, then the parts are reassembled, at times fitted with accoutrements not in a manner of juxtaposition of unrelated odds and ends but with an eye to a generic ensemble of paraphernalia associated with the boat and the boatmen; utensils and musical instruments among others a case in point. The horizontality was broken by the parts floating mid-air in an imaginary course of navigation projecting an undulating shadow which inevitably accompany a boat painted on canvas, replicated by conjuring up a synaesthesia of ‘affective’ words: sporsho, batash, neel, gyan, shobdo…, strewn in a not-so-disorderly pattern; words possibly inspired by the sensibility and understanding of a deep-set inter-dependence between man and nature, not to mention the imagined-felt-perceived watery course which brings one close to realizing the long-awaited union with the infinite, ashim.
The hull of the boats, curves and hollows within objects are utilized to allow for passage/ventilation of light and air, and also to ‘gaze’ through. Whereas, unyielding straightness of the oars are hung from above, with their tips reaching close to the ground with a promise of a deferred kiss, dispersed by the un-stillness of motion. In contrast, the heavy, sculptural installations inflect its environment with a silence steeped in its geo-cultural articulation of the ‘archaic’ accentuated by their rigid formations resembling geometric constellations. As a whole they are a meditation on stability, harmony and order redolent of an apollonian intention. Clay-blocks bear fossilized footprints arranged uni-directionally, running parallel to a hanging-bridge like installation. The colour black becomes a stark monochromatic overtone. The water-borne vessels are defamiliarized through transformation. Removed from their relational intra-action with fluidity, they are reincarnated as relics, which in fact, does the title justice.
Dehotori dilam chhario
Bhatiali is essentially the song of the boatman on the river. If Bhatiali is rendered in sync with the slow downstream journey reverberating in the undulating timbre of vocals, then Sari captures the vigorous upstream journey. The genre belongs to the folk, naïve, marginalized forms as labelled by the colonially modern, urban cognoscenti. These songs sung freely without notational strictures are supposedly expressions of existential angst. “Bhatiali often tends to merge with dehatattwa– a genre of music that dwells on the philosophy of the body. In these, the river is typically used as a metaphor for life. Where to get anchored and how to attain transcendence (siddhi) avoiding the enticements of life (presented through the motifs of lights, markets, colours) are questions asked perennially.” This is a quote from an essay written on Hemango Biswas, a venerable proponent of Bhatiali. In the context of the riverine delta, dehotori is adopted in its capacity as a linguistic signification as a vehicle to salvation, or let us say, mukti– emancipation.
In the Vaisnava-Sahajiya tradition of 16-18 century Bengal the human body is considered the primary locus of divinity, propagating the idea of spiritual immanence; wherein the material being is endowed with universal spirit. Going beyond the ontic, epistemic, metaphysical and most importantly essentializing categorization, the finite human seeks a union with the eternal by expanding on and mobilizing all its latent possibilities to be at one with the universe, from within the parameters of the bortoman, the situational time-space. The human body is inherently a part of the body politic inscribed with the signs of greater social structures and processes, but when the One that manifests in all human beings is known and realized, “it transcends the finite and open up the possibility to go beyond all existings texts, laws, rules and empirical descriptions defying representation,”( Farhad Mazhar). Caroline Bynum, an American historian argued that, marginalized, oppressed individuals can manipulate and radicalize the social body to gain new power and freedom from within the existing order. The local bhokti tradition has since centuries ago has shone light on the need to remain cognizant of social injustice enshrined in the dominant order, and to act to raise ethico-political resistance against it. Now, Sahajiya pantha lends us yet another powerful trope of biroho; “in biroho we measure our capacity to recognize the odhora by our koron to develop our senses or the body,” to borrow from Farhad Mazhar. Wakil’s insurrection of the dehotori, although it predates the baishamma-birodhi andolon, in essence, resonates with the present we inhabit (or this can be attributed to the author’s freedom to opine).
Final analysis?
Going back to the physical exhibition, the symbolism of the dehotori allows for a meagre representation through a sprawling, cultic mise-en-scene, which seemingly is invested in giving rise to a sensuous experience relying primarily on ‘vision’ which guides one practically to piece together a story, portending a way of life that which belongs to another time, another space yet quintessentially remains timeless, or so is assumed. Wakil’s venture to dig up regional samplings of pre-colonial life practices is smothered in ambivalence; the referents, appearing in the form of fragments of boats, is undoubtedly geographically indeterminate. Homogeneity is writ large all across the pale of the exhibition, since there was no visible effort at cross-cultural, cross-semiotic transversal. However, Dipesh Chakravarty comes to the rescue assuring one that there is little or no remiss in any gestures pertaining to drawing, “… sustenance from dreamed-up pasts and futures where collectivities are defined neither by the rituals of citizenship nor by the nightmare of “tradition” that “modernity” creates. There are of course no (infra)structural sites where such dreams could lodge themselves. Yet they will recur so long as the themes of citizenship and the nation state dominate our narratives of historical transition, for these dreams are what the modern represses in order to be.”