In occasione della quarta edizione dell'India Art Fair, in corso a Delhi dal 26 al 29 gennaio 2012, oggi Hindustan Times pubblica un'intervista concessa dall'artista Anjolie Ela Menon a Subuhi Parvez. Di seguito un estratto:
'What is the theme of your collection here? And what made you choose that?
I have been doing a whole theme called The Divine Mothers. So, I have like... Mary and Jesus, Maya and Buddha, Yashodha and Krishna etc. So, I am working on that series now. I have liked the idea of mother and child and I've often done it. But I thought I'd contextualize it this way and it'd be something different. One never knows which way one is going to move between one set of work and the other. So, this is one of that series.
I am really curious to know what goes through your mind while selecting a theme.
I don't even know what goes in my mind (she laughs). You sort of wait for an inspiration and then you start on a work then you add something to it and then in the middle of the night you might get a new idea. So it's all a mix of various things. Things that are residual in your own mind and consciousness, things that you see of the theme... may be the woman looks like somebody you are seeing very near you or the child might look like somebody you know. But the whole thing comes together in your own consciousness and subconscious.
Can you tell us something about the Mary and Jesus painting?
I have done a series before; well I think that's also true that one series also leads to another and there's no quantum jump... there's no big break from one series to the next. So I've been doing a series called the Goat People. That is because I live in Nizamuddin Basti [quartiere di Delhi] and these goats wander in and out of my studio, they eat the drawing sometimes (she laughs)... they love eating paper. So this is an extension of the goat series because in the Christian mythology, you always heard that Jesus was born in a crib... in a stable, I am not saying that it's literal but the goats continue to be in the paintings. And it is the difference in the myth being so rooted in ordinary reality like the goats, the chairs and the windows. And the angel's wing actually signifies divinity. So it's a combination of the divine and the temporal. (...)
How much emphasis is given to feminism in the field of art?
Why should it be, I mean there is didactic art, a lot people especially the youngsters... they are full of messages, full of protests. Personally, I have never done an art of protest because I don't feel... It's not that I don't have the very strong views on politics, feminism to whatever it is but I don't think that so far in India, art has been the best medium for protest. Television is obviously the best medium because it reaches those who need to be addressed. Unfortunately with much protest, we are only protesting to each other... to the believers. if there's protest you need to reach to the non-believers. And art doesn't address itself to the non-believers'.
(Nella fotografia: Anjolie Ela Menon presenta il suo dipinto Mary and Jesus all'India Art Fair 2012).
