Saying it the bohemian way

The works of GenNext artists Jiten Thukral and
Sumir Tagra are an indirect indictment of growing commercialisation, writes Nonika Singh

WHEN an artist duo decides to take on superstar Aamir Khan, one wonders if they want to bask in reflected limelight. But when the artists in question are none other than internationally acclaimed Jiten Thukral and Sumir Tagra, who figure among the 101 Emerging Designers of the World (Wallpaper magazine), best known for their innovative thinking, the fuss isn’t about gaining brownie points.

GenNext artists, who sent a legal notice to Aamir for violating the copyright of their creative licence Bosedk with his song "Bhag DK Bose" in Delhi Belly, put the controversy to rest for once and all. Says Jiten, the more vocal of the two, "We wanted to clarify our stand. This name was registered by us in 45 categories in 2005. Yet, Aamir used a T-shirt with my caricatured photograph on it, designed by me."

With matter having sorted out amicably with Aamir publicly proclaiming, "They are the original, I am the fake", the duo can’t stop grinning. "This should serve as a reminder to film fraternity that they can’t take liberty with other artists’ creativity".

Pray, why did they choose an obnoxious word, actually a Punjabi abuse, as the name of their artistic project? And they elucidate, "To use a well-known term of abuse and change it into English, our intention was to comment on the over-commercialisation of art within the booming marketplace."

Peeved at the way the market cookie is crumbling, their artistic lament pours by way of a parody of shopping malls in their Bosedk installations as well as the Punjab’s Baroque architecture underlining the Punjabi way of flaunting. Those who think, they better known as T&T, too, are a brand name, they disagree completely.

"We left our jobs as designers with O&M because we didn’t want to be dictated by consumer choices." Of course, somewhere their training in applied art (communication design) — Jiten is an alumnus of Government College of Art, Chandigarh, and Delhi College of Art, and Sumir of National Institute of Design — does propel them to shock and awe but the ultimate aim always is to get the message across. So be it their campaign "Hi I am India" that dents notions about India post-Slumdog Millionaire or HIV project in which they give flip flops free of cost with the message of safe sex scribbled boldly across, they convey as much as they jolt .

Without doubt, they insist, ideas come to their mind first "actually ideas find us" and the material the last. As they bounce it between themselves, the entire project takes birth. The only thing that remains common is their uncanny ability to think out of the box.

So in their project on deserted NRI wives called "Match-Fixed-Match" they have not only turned around the notion of the sport kabaddi but also used the symbols of huge trophies imaginatively and interviews of six NRI women as part of their installation, which incidentally was bought by a collector in Korea. Blurring the boundaries between videos, paintings, furniture, graphics and fashion and most importantly between popular culture and art, they go about redefining the set notions of art, often taking it upside down.

In sharp contrast to the "touch me not" museum avatar of art, they who believe installations can be smelt and tasted too, want viewers to take home a part of their art. Often physically too. Having come a long way from the time when they had no clue "what to do with museum space" to today when their works are part of prestigious museums — their work is being exhibited at Pompidou Centre in Paris and the Muse`E9 d’art contemporain de Lyon, France — they rubbish the allegation that contemporary Indian artists are aping the West.

They quip, "Subodh Gupta, Bharti Kher, Sudarshan Shetty ... tell me which artist is not inspired by his or her roots?" They too draw their creative impulses from the world around them, by facts such as why and when India, the land of Khajurao turned so prudish about sex and incorporate such ideas into their works like "Science, Mystery and Magic" which shall soon open in Japan.

Meanwhile, they continue to juxtapose reality, design, art, message and much more to evolve a whole with which they hope to change people’s lives. Art for art’s sake ... for them it’s all about reaching out to one and all cutting across class, gender and strata. To cajole people to think and react, their thinking caps remain firmly in place ... only each time, they wear a new one. Remarkably enough, howsoever, bizarre, each one fits.

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