|
| The Singh Twins |
| Kishore Singh / New Delhi Sep 17, 2011, 00:38 IST |
|
Far from the shores of India, in an outpost of the Empire over which the sun did set, two Sikhnis have kept an even earlier legacy dynamically alive. Amrit and Rabindra, Liverpool twins, who have only occasionally been shown in India (the National Gallery of Modern Art did them a commendable show, and they were a noticeable presence at the last India Art Summit) have become this country’s ambassadors, chroniclers and experimenters of its tradition of miniature art.
Here, miniature paintings as a contemporary form have been largely ignored, even given the occasional show (such as Tina Ambani’s Harmony), or inspiration (a whole generation pays pop-kitsch homage, perhaps mistaking folk for miniature), while in Pakistan it has become the national — therefore, structured — art form. But it is in UK that the Singh Twins, as they are popularly addressed, have taken the format to its logical next level: casual viewers might perceive them as ‘fun’ and ‘interesting’, but there is far more cultural depth to these jewel-like works than just their eye for the unusual, their ability to think and paint together, and their love of detail.
They will stand together this evening in New Delhi to present details and examples from their Liverpool project: from giving them a retrospective of their work to winning the first Liverpool Art Prize, it was natural that these outsider-insiders were chosen by the Liverpool City Council to commission special works to mark the city’s 800th anniversary, its status as European Capital of Culture, and most recently an award-winning Arts Council England-funded animation on The Making of Liverpool. It was an India visit, in 1980, that had awakened their keen interest in Indian miniatures, the best of which they absorbed hungrily for their “exquisite detail”, “technical skill” and “breathtaking perfection”. Having found their muse, they then also found their subject: a connect through degrees of separation (and similarity) across civilisations, cultures and centuries.
Liverpool aside, the Twins’ miniature-inspired paintings combine their immediate heritage of India and England, is often deeply (and therefore, sometimes sentimentally) personal, emblematic of the migrant’s journey to an alien environment with its own social and political icons. The Singh Twins cavort across the gamut of popular political and societal imagination, rendering it in a style that has been ignored in their own home country. Unrelentingly ‘Indian’ in their sense of belonging, the twins have been feted across the West and constantly put on the podium to dissect their art of painting and the values of what they delightfully describe as “past modern”.
For their troubles — and their format and detailing requires almost as much toil as imagination — the Singh Twins command between Rs 25 lakh and Rs 1 crore for original works, though it’s a tad difficult to calculate a value index, which is usually based on secondary sales. That they are being collected by museums (probably at lower values, since museums notoriously pay less) ups their desirability quotient among serious collectors. Meanwhile, as next best, their giclee prints are now available in the capital’s Art Alive Gallery for Rs 2 lakh (mixed-media renditions are up for grabs at Rs 4.75 lakh).
With their “portraits” of Liverpool being shown here, is it too much to hope that the sisters will do a similar honour if not for New Delhi then at least for their native Punjab? We have had chronicles in literature: perhaps Amrit and Rabindra could now do for some fortunate suburbia what they have done for Liverpool and give a city of their choice its archives in a series of portraits.
Kishore Singh is a Delhi-based writer and art critic. These views are personal and do not reflect those of the organisation with which he is associated
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Read Business news in |  |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Advertisements |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Content Guide
