What does it mean to be a contemporary artist today in Nepal? For most viewers even now, anyone working outside the field of traditional arts is a ‘modern’ artist. Any work of art that is non-objective or non-representational is dubbed ‘modern’. But there are a number of artists practicing here, who have have been practising for some time, who insist on calling themselves contemporary art practitioners. And this is despite the fact that ‘contemporary’ is a word not familiar to everyday usage and sometimes the artists themselves cannot explain convincingly why they are contemporaries and not modernists.  

But these artists should not be held to task. It is not easy to locate oneself as a practitioner within a field that exists as a temporal simultaneity and still be able to analyse it with the understanding of a critic looking back from the future. The modernists had an easier task in Nepal, since their stylistic break from what was being practised till then was so sharp and so obvious that there was little space for misnomers. Also, a few Euro-American modernist masters were well-known enough to conjure up familiar visions with which Nepali viewers could associate the output of artists like Lain Singh Bangdel, the SKIB group, Shashikala Tiwari, and Uttam Nepali. But the discernible styles and artistic preoccupations of these Euro-American artists allowed for easy recollection as touchstones. Modernist tendencies flourishing across the border in India were also strongly Eurocentric, though undercut by regional preoccupations.

Multiplicity and coherence

Today, the scene is discernibly different. There are so many artistic trends, each with its avowed great, reigning worldwide that it is quite impossible even for art historians, let alone lay viewers, to be able to have a comprehensive understanding of the way things are or of the direction they are taking. Thanks to postmodernism’s so- called democratising currents, an unprecedented number of styles, media, and worldviews coexist in happy synchronicity.

But does this multiplicity of trends absolve today’s artists and viewers of all responsibility toward any sort of consistence or coherence in both art making and appreciation? Not really. Artists of all ages have had to function contemporaneously. And so have viewers, patrons, and collectors. The production of art—be it objects, ideas, or processes—can be safely called incomplete in the absence of viewers/participators. It is therefore the viewer who completes an artwork. The viewer’s appreciation and critique provides an artist with space within the art ecology to continue production.

The significance of the viewer has unfortunately lost its relevance today. The global art system has become so heavily dependent on art institutions that it is increasingly becoming difficult to consistently engage in art production, unless validated or legitimised by galleries, art schools, museums, fairs and biennales, individual opinion-makers, and collectors of standing. Therefore, it would be safe to say that if one or some of these support an artist’s production, it is good contemporary art. The viewer merely goes along and makes the right noises.

Creating value

In the context of Nepal, we need to remember that the art ecology or economy is quite nascent. Even though traditional arts enjoy remarkable global and local popularity (as artefacts mostly) among institutions and collectors, so-called contemporary artists are nowhere near enjoying that level of success. We have no contemporary art museum here and less than a handful of galleries and commercial exhibition spaces showcase art. Predictably, these institutions prefer to showcase art that is in direct alignment with the tastes of local collectors (in the absence of any significant number of international ones). Since an artwork here has by itself very little intrinsic value in terms of the materials invested in it, it is the value conferred upon it by a prospective collector that makes it worthwhile (as opposed to worth-less). This value is necessarily based on the subjective taste or passion of a gallerist cum/or collector.

And it is this subjective value that is transmitted to general viewers, who believe they are learning to appreciate new things. It might be safe to infer that it is the comforting resonance triggered by an individual collector’s cultural memory, exposure to globally trending art styles, and resale value of an art piece that actually structures their elusive ‘taste’. All these three factors are backward looking in time, rooted in already tested and proven successful models. Is it then a surprise that many of our contemporary artists today are producing contemporaneous works, but they merely rehash obsolete paradigms instead of pushing boundaries? Technically, these are excellent pieces, apparently pushing Nepal’s art scene into an upward spiral, but I have a feeling that 10 years down the line, we will be looking back and bemoaning the precious decades we have wasted on aping international models of successful art instead of working out and strengthening our own identity here.  

Overlooking potential

Contemporary art practice is not about re-producing preexisting notions and images as artworks in order to perpetuate the existing cultural and economic order. It is not about looking to the West or successful neighbours for formal inspiration. It is a methodology, not a profession or vocation. One should use it like an alphabet to read a text with—the text in this case is the living world and our immediate surroundings. It is a methodology to question the here and now with, so that our findings—both as an artist and a viewer/participator—will help restructure the things that need to change for the better.

It is indeed a shame that in this country, we insist on defining contemporary art and artists as mere producers of artworks that reinstate given values and tastes, or reiterate globally popular idioms; instead of recognising and giving space to the explosive, fantastic, mass-humanising potential it really has.  

Dasgupta is an Indian artist and writer based in Kathmandu ([email protected])