Art(Ist): Finding The Artist In The Art And The Art In The Artist
- Susmitha Akula, TYBA
I sit by the window with chai in my hands, replaying a conversation from moments ago: “C’mon, you can not like the artist, but the art can be appreciated, no?” and I wonder if you can? Can art exist in a vacuum, just as art? But what does vacuum mean for something that originates from the human mind, from the human need for expression?
So… what is art? Is it aesthetics? Rebellion? Hope? Livelihood?- it’s everything. Everything the human mind can think about art is what art becomes. A woman weaving beautiful flower garlands on the road could mean decoration or an accessory for us, but for her it’s her art, which is also her livelihood. Women, for the longest time, have been asked, “silai bunai aati hai?” (Do you know how to stitch and weave?) during marriage proposals and are expected to be perfect at domestic tasks, but they’ve gone beyond it; women learnt to stitch, weave and embroider to save some money, and earn some by extending these services to others. Leveraging their checklists of being a ‘good woman’, small female vendors have created financial security for themselves. Women with some privilege take up entrepreneurial endeavors, employing many women alongside them. Brands like Taasha Crafts, making customised bangles, made it as big as pitching their business on Shark Tank India. Women establishing financial security through cultural art can also be viewed as a practice in many parts of the world, as noted by Nthoi (2026) in Botswana.
Cultural festivals like the Kala Ghoda or other national exhibitions now have designated stalls for handicrafts and handlooms to promote and exhibit culture. These stalls, however, can tend to become exclusionary, as commodities are priced at a higher value, which automatically restricts the audience for this ‘artistic’ endeavour. The prices can be justified as wages for labour, but in a neoliberal capitalist society, as the class divide continues to consolidate, the creator becomes marginalized in their own work, catering to the desires of a class that’s ‘better off.’
Conversations about art being neutral seem to be less about individual morality and more about privilege. Who has the privilege to see or unsee art as political stems from what one survives. Since the independence struggle, art has held a revolutionary space through songs, painting, and writings (books and articles), which continues even today. Grafenauer et al. (2022) also note the presence and importance of art in protests in bringing solidarity among people. During the CJP protests, people found solace in reading at the temporary libraries; meme placards were taken to the protests, and video edits were largely circulated, awakening and sustaining the spirit of democracy in people regardless of their physical locality. The art that was created during these times also evoked varied responses from people; some called the protesters funny, some said they were disrespectful and vulgar.
Lewes (1860) writes that vulgar is something that does not speak to the mind and only to the senses; in essence, anything that’s a social taboo. However, he continues that a dull mind can turn a noble into vulgar, whereas a fine mind does vice versa. I wonder if the dull mind is one that is strongly conditioned to control bodies of women, of people with non-conforming gender identities, of people who are happy in the acceptance of differences. I wonder if the dull mind is trained by the movies of the ‘gaze’ that portray women as pleasure objects and not people; I wonder if they’re trained to comment “slut” or “belongs to the streets” under a person’s post who expresses themselves through fashion. Art platforms then don’t just remain about the art; they also become about the artist. Can they afford to survive here? Can they afford to express themselves against what the majority declares ‘wrong’?
This dilemma also raises questions about whether an artist’s individual influence is enough to overshadow what their art represents. Guru Randhawa, a recent hype in the music industry, is known in the public sphere as an extremely humble and respectful person even after gaining international traction. The same person goes on to produce music videos like ‘Azul’ where women in school uniforms are highly sexualised and the lyrics of the song objectify women as a bottle of alcohol. Ironically, women form a huge base of his fandom because of his romantic tracks like “Suit”, his boy-next-door image, and audience engagement through social media. His carefully crafted public image falls under great scrutiny once his music is scrutinised.
These questions aren’t unique to popular music; literary art spaces also present this dilemma in different forms. Chetan Bhagat, a renowned writer, drew criticism for his book featuring a 33-year-old divorced male protagonist and a 21-year-old woman, due to concerns about ‘grooming’ in a romantic relationship. Justifying his character creation, he stated that if this character dynamic seems problematic because the female is ‘young and naive ’, then 21-year-old women should also not be eligible for the UPSC examination or be given the right to vote. In his statement, he clearly confuses intimate, romantic choices with universal legal and intellectual capacities of women. The core problem wasn’t the age, but the power dynamics it creates in an intimate relationship, which again can be more dangerous for women in a patriarchal setup.
These questions can be even more complicated when the artist’s work revolves around cultural, historical, and religious claims. Amish Tripathi, labelled as a renowned mythological fiction writer, claimed in a podcast, ‘Infinite India’, that the ‘Sati Pratha’ was not a prevalent Hindu practice in India, just isolated instances driven by pure grief used by the colonisers to defame Indian culture. He referred to the Ramayana and Mahabharata, saying that the widows of the two epics never immolated on the pyres of their husbands. Critics argued that relying heavily on mythological narratives can take away from the realities of the struggles by Raja Rammohan Roy and gruesome cases from the ‘modern’ era as recent as the 1970’s of the forced immolation of 18-year-old Roop Kanwar. Even after such intense controversies, he remains a famous commercial writer and film writer in India.
Following such controversies, discussions on ethicality and morality in art can be difficult. Who can be prevented from creating art, and who has the right to decide that if the ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’ remain subjective? How do we also define ethicality on the thin line between gatekeeping artistic cultures and protecting an artist's expression?
Cultural acceptance of artists, especially in India, is multilayered; it has to pass through the filters of class, caste, religion, gender, etc. Diwakar & University of Chicago (2022) write that the upper-caste auditoriums in Chennai for Carnatic music are a way to maintain their social status by gatekeeping art to a certain stratum of society. The demand for an aesthetic audience, the fine mind in Lewes’ (1860) words, determines who can have access to this art platform, as membership also gets passed on through kinship ties.
While Carnatic music is associated with the aesthetic, pure, sacralised group, Gana music in Chennai is associated with the others: the voices of the folks, the Dalits and the working-class neighbourhoods, stealing hearts with fast beats, talking about daily life and social issues, and played at local celebrations and weddings. Following India’s history of social stratification, caste associations still prove to influence the art people create or are allowed to create. The Quint reports that the caste of the idol maker influences which part of the Ganesh idol the artist is allowed to make. An idol maker from the Delhi NCR region states that “customers have a problem if they know that the idol is made by somebody from a backward caste”; he continues that “I can only give them other smaller jobs ”. Perhaps, this is why even when art seems neutral and apolitical, it really isn’t.
Art is as dynamic and reflective of society; in contemporary times, with social media, increased connectivity, and advanced Artificial intelligence seeping into our everyday lives, AI-generated art raises questions about art’s and an artist's credibility. The Ghibli AI trend that had people fawning over hand-drawn, Japanese anime aesthetic pictures of themselves drew huge concerns about artistic and intellectual rights, as OpenAI’s ChatGPT created the Ghibli photos without licensing. This trend not only caused environmental harm with gallons of water being used to generate images, but also risked the data privacy of individuals while also raising concerns of AI replacing human jobs in art creation. This trend has also raised the need for artists to be more ‘original’ if they want to be valued.
As I continue to stare into a void, my chai sitting cold next to me, a little layer forming on it like a second layer of paint on canvas, I continue to think of art, as an artist, as a muse, as an audience, for how can I not, when art means so many things at once and yet nothing that can be simply described.
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This piece is a joy to read!!!
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