Art Objects

Engaging with art
It’s a certain issue the society encounters at every stage- the engagement with art. Numerous arguments as why and how one should engage in art, should art be a participatory/ interactive act or should it work in isolation, should there be a certain vocabulary/ knowledge which an individual should carry to engage into a work of art or is art an open interpretation platform, make people retaliate from art participation.
By nature, we feel comfortable with familiar objects. Things interest us only when we see a possible interpretation. Engaging with art is a similar phenomenon where we try to relate things with our life through our knowledge. We try and attribute to the object of art, values like beauty, love, hate, fear etc. which are part of our lives. And when an art form enters a state of aggression where it starts questioning this very basis of social value system, we try avoiding engagement in it.
With a high level of ignorance, we as individuals classify ourselves into different value systems where anything beyond the boundary of thoughts of this value system is vague and unacceptable to us. When confronted to a piece of art and given time to expose the self to it, an individual might loose temperament over the time making the mind ponder over multiple issues ending up with an argument about what he achieves by spending time.
A work of art can’t exist without a context, a context which lies in the social or personal life of the artist. It is only this context which someone might skip which then makes him unable to interpret the work adding to the anxiety and discomfort. Lack of knowledge is the biggest social fear.
Exposing yourself to a piece of art without any context is like confronting a person you don’t know. Neither can you interact with the person nor do you achieve anything from this stranger. The confrontation is hence mundane and carries no weight in life. Art can get familiar only through engagement. Only then can it be used to get something in return
The platforms for art interactions we have defined in the society play and important role in public participation. The museum becomes an event of mere transition where a person is exposed to varied art objects as a blow. In a fast life in places like a metropolis where there are ample museums bombarding people with numerous art expressions, urban man is losing touch with the art and thought behind it. Works of art come across just as frames and images and the memory of the piece of art is not the experience but the image. Art then is judged on basis of the face value and notions such as attractiveness, beauty, appeal etc. which are the constituting factors but not the zest of the piece of art. More over, paintings have taken from of a commodity and are priced depending upon the social values and artist profile. It then becomes so that the value doesn’t define the price of this commodity and the situation is reversed. People judge a painting depending upon its tag price. A metaphysical act such as art then takes a transcendental form in society and hence loses value.
Things completely change when art enters the city fabric and interferes with life of people. Street art events like the Kala Ghoda festival in Mumbai have more possibility of public engagement. The very events and issues which are contemporary to the lives of the city inhabitants are portrayed in a subtle but radical manner which makes the platform more informal. The interference of the street works beyond the white walls of the museums.
Art objects. An object has the capacity to spark a relation between the viewer and itself. Every individual is made of characteristics which define him and art starts objecting life at a point where there is a resonance between the ‘I’ and the object. This is the point of discourse. It is then when you can lose yourself and be open to the responses you generate, lying naked to the work of art. The sense of ‘I” which you carry is then so broad/open and fragile that you are able to deconstruct your being and allow the art object to act.
Hence, the ‘I’ is never constant. ‘I’ is a process of becoming, like the urge of attaining a utopian state where an individual is in a constant state of synthesis.

building a monument

A great building becomes a monument over a period of time. But it loses its greatness thereby. Probably, we go wrong in our definition of monuments. A true monument to me is a building which is always in a process. It’s not ‘the building’; it’s a building in process, a building which traces events and eras through inscriptions and ideas. A true monument will record all these- the thought which got it into being, its building process, its commercialization, its detoriation, the reclamation and politics and so on. A building that reflects the fact that it was faked for the sake of humanity and human will. Even a contemporary building which has the power to record and recall/reflect the past and current issues of the society it exists in is a monument to us.
Architecture can never be neutral. It is the biggest political act that an individual can perform. We should thereby look up to preserve, harbor and build such buildings which are shaped by the society and hence have the courage to shape it back.
Today we are facing a crisis. Architects themselves have lost faith in their practice. We don’t know where we are heading towards. With the fight between globalization and individual identity reaching its peak, we fall on either side by accepting the facts or by revolting with tools which don’t belong to our society.
Rather confused people add to the confusion by reverting back to the history and thinking about conservation against developement or by establishing notions of sustainability and awareness to fake the whole system.
Modernism I feel was the most subtle movement architecture went through. The buildings were paradoxically calm and overwhelming. The movement was a bang to the society with utter silence. It had varied ill factors as critics pointed out, but they left the one very important factor which was the root of the unstable thought we have as architects/designers. It was that Modernism had the power to provoke thought in an individual. It had the seed of self-expression and identity which was powerful enough to invite critics and to make people think about what they were building. Ever since, there has been confusion.