Culture Control

He has had his share of power as director on the board of the Central Cottage Industries along with being a member of the board of Tourism Industry and Trade. More recently he has been mentoring the World Bank on its culture policies.

Says Laila Tyabji of Dastakar, ‘‘Sethi has a fascinating imagination. He really pushes the craftsmen and his exhibitions have energy. But though his work of 25-30 years may be brilliant creative exercises, they don’t go beyond that.’’ Others accuse him of interpreting India for the Western world and exoticising its culture. ‘‘Why do all of Sethi’s exhibitions have to be opulent durbar scenes?’’ asks an art critic.

Sethi continues to wield control over the foreign market with recent projects like the one at Expo 2000, Hanover, and the Silk Route Festival, 2002, Smithsonian Museum. Obviously, the contacts he made under Jayakar’s leadership continue to sustain him. However, it remains to be seen how long he can continue showcasing India’s culture and diversity abroad now that pop culture like Bollywood is the name of the game.

Master of Spin

Martand Singh: Another blue-eyed boy of Pupul Jayakar, Indian textile guru Singh has been credited with many things. He took over Sarabhai’s Calico Museum in Ahmedabad and turned it into one of the best textile museums in the world. When the handloom industry was nearly defunct, Singh stepped in and did a whole series of new designs rooted in tradition.

From 1980 to 1990, Singh did a series of exhibitions called the Vishwakarma series with the support of the Development Commissioner, Handlooms, and the Weaver’s Service Centres, but they raised certain crucial issues. Says crafts expert Jasleen Dhamija, ‘‘While it may be interesting that he made craftsmen spend a year evolving variations of a particular pattern, it didn’t solve the economic problems of the handloom industry.’’

His leadership of INTACH also raised questions like how a textile expert could evolve the country’s conservation policies. ‘‘The blue tiled Nila Gumbad at Delhi’s Nizamuddin is a real eye-sore,’’ says a conservator of one of Singh’s projects.

However, there is all-round applause today for Singh’s introduction of the Charles Wallace scholarships to the country through the INTACH-UK Chapter, which he heads. ‘‘Now, we have at least 40-45 trained architects conservators in the country, something we sorely needed,’’ says architect Ratish Nanda. Though many feel he has withdrawn from the scene, the recent, high-profile Khadi exhibition, sponsored by the charity of the Swiss company, Volkart Holdings, which Singh curated with his team of young designers like Rakesh Thakore and Rta Kapur Chisti (Rajeev Sethi’s cousin), is enough evidence that he is still a force to reckon with.

In Her Own Write

Geeta Kapur: Critic and academician, Geeta Kapur has a formidable body of work to back her status in the Indian art world and even more formidable reputation among artists. One of the first to write a ‘metanarrative of Indian art’ with exhibitions like Place for People, 1981, and her book When was Modernism, Kapur remains the voice of authority from the academic point of view. Artists believe that to be accepted and written about by her is having it made.

One of the few art critics to be initiated into the otherwise literary circle of writers with Nehru Fellowships, Kapur has been the singular, dominant presence in the field for the past three decades, so much so that her writings alone seem to have constituted the whole minefield of modern Indian art theory and criticism. Her writings on contemporary Indian art remain unapologetically selective (her purview is limited to a clutch of Mumbai-Baroda painters), but Kapur will continue to reign until another art academician comes along to dislodge her.

Mister Museum

Jyotindra Jain: Armed with a PhD in Anthropology and Indology from the University of Vienna, Jyotindra Jain set up the Shreyas Folk Museum in Ahmedabad. His expertise in this area was best reflected in the way he turned around the Crafts Museum (he took over as director in 1984) from a decaying dump to a lively exhibition space that showcased the best of ancient crafts in the gallery with live demonstartions of contemporary crafts. Says politician and fellow-patron of the crafts Jaya Jaitley, ‘‘Jyotindra has contributed to the body of academics as well as enhanced the art of displaying craft. But he is employed by the government and his powers are circumscribed by his job.’’

Jain has always been an institutional face, playing a role in charting policies and being part of various committees, be it the Indian Commission to UNESCO or the Indo-German Consultative Group that advises the government on cultural exchanges between the two countries.

‘‘Now that Jain has retired from directorship, one is apprehensive about whether the system he built up in the Crafts Museum will survive or not,’’ says paper merchant and founder of Sanskriti, O P Jain. But even as the Crafts Museum’s fate remains unsure, Jain has moved on to greener pastures, setting up a brand new Department of Arts and Aesthetics in the Jawaharlal Nehru University. From museum to academia, Jain is still a culture maven.

Playing to the Gallery

Saryu Doshi: The director of National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), Mumbai, Dr Saryu Doshi, is the final word when it comes to accessing this premier gallery. As a student of art history, Doshi specialised in Jain miniatures, and has published and presented several papers on the subject. But it was as an art collector that she dominated the Mumbai art scene. In fact, some wonder how Doshi, equipped with a specialisation in medieval paintings, can head a contemporary art institution like the NGMA alongside being the pro/temp Chairman of the Lalit Kala Akademi. Doshi argues that her contact with modern art has been through her private collection (housed in her Carmichael Road residence) and her interactions with the likes of American collector Chester Herwitz. Meanwhile, young artists in the city continue to clamour for Doshi’s attention as a passport to recognition.

Dance Diva

Anita Ratnam: ‘‘I am here to clear a space for others,’’ gushes the 45-year-old Chennai-based dancer-cum-organiser Anita Ratnam. And she did just that five years ago with the launch of her annual The Other Festival right in that sturdy bastion of classicism. Today, reputed international dancers like Ramli Ibrahim and Akram Khan come to Ratnam’s festival as much to perform as to scout for new talent. ‘‘It really is a platform for experimental Indian dancers,’’ lauds neo-Kathak dancer, Aditi Mangaldas.

Ratnam, a Bharata Natyam votary, returned to Chennai after working as a television producer in America. Her 10-year-old organisation Arangham also holds interactive movement workshops with students and works at reviving forgotten performance traditions. It helps that Ratnam belongs to the multi-million dollar TVS business family, with an unconventional mother — the only international dog show judge in India!

She is often accused of being a publicity-hound and sidetracking from dance to show off her pretty face in fashion magazines or in Tamil films. To Ratnam’s credit goes the creation of the first Indian dance website, narthaki.com. Says a senior Chennai-based critic, ‘‘Ratnam is a better packagist than dancer!’’, but the directrice of The Other Festival is unrepentant: ‘‘There aren’t too many classical dancers who can straddle both worlds,’’ she says defiantly.