A rare handwritten Hindi poem by artist M F Husain, "Mere Dil ki Dhadkan...(The beat of my heart)", is one of the prized pieces at an exhibition of art, Weaving Legacy 10 and it is on sale.
The poem, composed in a stylised manner with accompanying line drawings and doodles on four ordinary text-book sheets with black ink, brings forth the artist's troubled emotional state and a sense of nihilism. The work, dating back to the 1990s, is priced at Rs.2.5 lakh.
"The exhibit sourced from a private collector for the exhibition is rare because it was meant to be reproduced as a limited edition print. But for some reason, it could not be printed," Gargi Seth, curator of the show, told IANS. "The work on display is the lone copy of the poem in the country now," she added.
Full report here Hindustan Times
Showing posts with label M F Husain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label M F Husain. Show all posts
Friday, September 24, 2010
Friday, March 12, 2010
India should protect Husain: Rushdie
Author Sir Salman Rushdie took the Indian government to task for not acting positively in the MF Husain case and said modern India was giving itself up to extremism, both Hindu and Muslim, and narrow sectarian thinking which was inimical to Gandhi's ideals. "This is increasing at a phenomenal rate lately," he added.
Delivering the keynote address on the first day of the India Today Conclave in New Delhi on Friday, Rushdie said, "Freedom is not a tea party. It has to be strongly argued. Disagreement with whoever wants to stifle your freedom has to be strongly fought. You have to shout at the frontier to protect your borders."
Rushdie, in his first comment on the Husain affair, said it was indeed sad that India was showing its closed mind."Tolerance is not an alien idea to us, Indians. If I am not allowed to write, I would rather not write."
He said it was strange that that the Indian government was allowing this to happen to Husain. "Britain helped me in 1989 though I was not a supporter of the party in power. That is what I would call a principled stand. Surrender in such cases only multiplies the problem. Politicians sadly need to develop the backbone which they lack. Even the media in India should say enough is enough."
Full report here India Today
Rushdie, in his first comment on the Husain affair, said it was indeed sad that India was showing its closed mind."Tolerance is not an alien idea to us, Indians. If I am not allowed to write, I would rather not write."
He said it was strange that that the Indian government was allowing this to happen to Husain. "Britain helped me in 1989 though I was not a supporter of the party in power. That is what I would call a principled stand. Surrender in such cases only multiplies the problem. Politicians sadly need to develop the backbone which they lack. Even the media in India should say enough is enough."
Full report here India Today
Intolerant India
Free speech is increasingly under attack in the world's most populous democracy. The distribution of "Crescent Over the World," a book including contributions from Salman Rushdie, Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen, and a cartoon from the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Mr. Narisetti is out on bail now; Mr. Laxmaiah remains in custody.
Indians boast of living in the world's most populous democracy, and rightly so. Regular elections and vigorous public debate are a rebuke to anyone who thinks that liberty can't flourish in a large, largely poor, culturally and linguistically diverse country. But in one area of life officials' concerns for keeping peace between various religious and ethnic groups is threatening a core freedom: speech.
In a little-noticed case on Feb. 26, police in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh arrested Macha Laxmaiah, an author who writes using the pseudonym Krantikar ("revolutionary"), and his distributors, including Innaiah Narisetti, president of the Hyderabad-based nonprofit Center for Inquiry, for "hurting the sentiments of Muslims." Their alleged crime? The distribution of Crescent Over the World, a book including contributions from Salman Rushdie, Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen, and a cartoon from the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Mr. Narisetti is out on bail now; Mr. Laxmaiah remains in custody.
The works of Maqbool Fida Husain have been attacked by Hindu nationalists.
Then there are the continuing attacks on Ms. Nasreen and her supporters. Last week, masked men broke into the offices of Kannada Prabha, a local-language newspaper in the southern state of Karnataka. Its weekly magazine had published a piece allegedly written by Ms. Nasreen that criticized the burqa, the veil that many Muslim women wear. Muslim groups had protested the article—which was three years old and republished by the Kannada newspaper without her permission—and violence in two towns ensued, leading to two deaths and dozens arrested. Ms. Nasreen, who fled Bangladesh in 1994 after Muslim fundamentalists threatened her life, currently divides her time between Sweden and the United States, but says she wants to live in India. The government stands in the way, not permitting her to stay in Kolkata, where she prefers to live, and keeping her at an undisclosed location in New Delhi under security surveillance during her last extended stay in the country ostensibly for her own safety.
The sensitivity doesn't just concern Islam. Last week, India's foremost painter, Maqbool Fida Husain, who is 94, decided to give up Indian nationality and became a Qatari citizen. Mr. Husain is a Muslim, and among the many themes he has painted are a few paintings of Hindu deities in the nude. These works were completed and first displayed decades ago, but since the mid-1990s Hindu nationalists have campaigned against him, saying his work insulted their faith. They attacked galleries exhibiting his works, threatened him with violence, and filed lawsuits against him. The state attached some of his property and police officers issued arrest warrants against him, even as the Delhi High Court (and later the Supreme Court) ruled in his favor and officials publicly praised him. Unwilling to trust the state to protect him, Mr. Husain, who has lived abroad much of the past decade, gave up his nationality.
Full report here The Wall Street Journal
Indians boast of living in the world's most populous democracy, and rightly so. Regular elections and vigorous public debate are a rebuke to anyone who thinks that liberty can't flourish in a large, largely poor, culturally and linguistically diverse country. But in one area of life officials' concerns for keeping peace between various religious and ethnic groups is threatening a core freedom: speech.
The works of Maqbool Fida Husain have been attacked by Hindu nationalists.
Then there are the continuing attacks on Ms. Nasreen and her supporters. Last week, masked men broke into the offices of Kannada Prabha, a local-language newspaper in the southern state of Karnataka. Its weekly magazine had published a piece allegedly written by Ms. Nasreen that criticized the burqa, the veil that many Muslim women wear. Muslim groups had protested the article—which was three years old and republished by the Kannada newspaper without her permission—and violence in two towns ensued, leading to two deaths and dozens arrested. Ms. Nasreen, who fled Bangladesh in 1994 after Muslim fundamentalists threatened her life, currently divides her time between Sweden and the United States, but says she wants to live in India. The government stands in the way, not permitting her to stay in Kolkata, where she prefers to live, and keeping her at an undisclosed location in New Delhi under security surveillance during her last extended stay in the country ostensibly for her own safety.
The sensitivity doesn't just concern Islam. Last week, India's foremost painter, Maqbool Fida Husain, who is 94, decided to give up Indian nationality and became a Qatari citizen. Mr. Husain is a Muslim, and among the many themes he has painted are a few paintings of Hindu deities in the nude. These works were completed and first displayed decades ago, but since the mid-1990s Hindu nationalists have campaigned against him, saying his work insulted their faith. They attacked galleries exhibiting his works, threatened him with violence, and filed lawsuits against him. The state attached some of his property and police officers issued arrest warrants against him, even as the Delhi High Court (and later the Supreme Court) ruled in his favor and officials publicly praised him. Unwilling to trust the state to protect him, Mr. Husain, who has lived abroad much of the past decade, gave up his nationality.
Full report here The Wall Street Journal
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Why the Maoists want Arundhati Roy
Indian militant groups are adopting celebrities to push their cause in civil society, bypassing dialogue with the state
Manifesting different aspects of the divine essence, Indian gods and goddesses are often portrayed seated upon or beside the animals deemed to be their particular "vehicles". The elephant-headed Lord Ganesha, for example, has a rat as his vehicle, as if to demonstrate in a manner both quotidian and profound that the least of creatures might bear the greatest of truths. On the plane of India's politics, however, where truths and untruths both require vehicles, celebrities have come to serve as the beasts of choice for groups seeking to publicise their causes.
Such figures sometimes make unwilling vehicles, as the recent cases of MF Hussain and Taslima Nasreen illustrate. The first, an eminent artist living in exile after threats from Hindu militants objecting to his "pornographic" depictions of a goddess, has just accepted Qatari citizenship. The second, a Bangladeshi writer who went into exile after threats from Muslim militants objecting to her portrayal of Islam, has been accused of writing an article against veiling that provoked violence in the Indian state of Karnataka.
Full report here Guardian
Such figures sometimes make unwilling vehicles, as the recent cases of MF Hussain and Taslima Nasreen illustrate. The first, an eminent artist living in exile after threats from Hindu militants objecting to his "pornographic" depictions of a goddess, has just accepted Qatari citizenship. The second, a Bangladeshi writer who went into exile after threats from Muslim militants objecting to her portrayal of Islam, has been accused of writing an article against veiling that provoked violence in the Indian state of Karnataka.
Full report here Guardian
Friday, March 5, 2010
Consistency is antidote to India’s enemies of reason
Husain, on the other hand, is in self-imposed exile from India over the last few years, shuttling between London, Riyadh and Dubai. Last week, his son Owais Husain said that his father had accepted Qatar’s offer of honorary citizenship.
The 95-year-old Husain, whose family members otherwise lead a very comfortable life in India, left the country when right-wing Hindu fringe groups confronted him over controversial paintings of Hindu gods and goddesses. Several legal cases have also been filed against him.
Full report here UPI
Sunday, February 28, 2010
'Husain knows his Ramayana better than many pundits'
Photographer and designer Ram Rahman is M F Husain’s friend. More to the point, he is an activist — for the freedom to speak. A founder-member of the artists’ body Sahmat, he laments India’s shrinking space for creative freedom in conversation with Nandita Sengupta . Excerpts from the interview:
What is it about M F Husain’s clutch of paintings that keeps him away from his country?
Husain is one of the few artists who has a popular connect because he comes from a different background. He has crossed every tradition, worked on every religion, mined all these religious traditions and mined all iconographic traditions. The irony is that he is not a revolutionary painter. Conceptually, Husain has never transgressed. He has reinterpreted existing iconography in his own style. That’s all. But he has a connect.
There are two issues here. First, the titles of the paintings. Second, the politics of protest. Husain named his Durga sketch just that, ‘Durga’. ‘Durga in union with Lion’ is the interpretation on the website of the Janajagruti samiti, which run their main campaign against Husain. Bharatmata was not a title Husain gave. ‘Hanuman rescuing Sita’ was also an untitled work. The title was given by an art critic who didn’t have the guts to come out in the open. Husain is not stupid. He knows his Ramayana better than many pundits. He was making a flying Hanuman. The title is incorrect. Did Hanuman rescue Sita? No.
Full interview here Times of India
Husain is one of the few artists who has a popular connect because he comes from a different background. He has crossed every tradition, worked on every religion, mined all these religious traditions and mined all iconographic traditions. The irony is that he is not a revolutionary painter. Conceptually, Husain has never transgressed. He has reinterpreted existing iconography in his own style. That’s all. But he has a connect.
There are two issues here. First, the titles of the paintings. Second, the politics of protest. Husain named his Durga sketch just that, ‘Durga’. ‘Durga in union with Lion’ is the interpretation on the website of the Janajagruti samiti, which run their main campaign against Husain. Bharatmata was not a title Husain gave. ‘Hanuman rescuing Sita’ was also an untitled work. The title was given by an art critic who didn’t have the guts to come out in the open. Husain is not stupid. He knows his Ramayana better than many pundits. He was making a flying Hanuman. The title is incorrect. Did Hanuman rescue Sita? No.
Full interview here Times of India
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