AGENDA | Sunday, May 20, 2007 | Email | Print | 
Defiling Christ is not art
Coffee Break: Kanchan Gupta
Had it not been for the eagle-eyed Giorgos Karatzaferis, a conservative politician of the Greek People's Party, Outlook (not to be confused with the magazine that is compulsory bed-time reading for south Delhi's chattering classes) would have largely gone unnoticed in Athens. The "biggest ever contemporary art show", featuring various renditions of the human body denuded of clothes, which opened in the winter of 2003, was meant to set the tone for the 2004 Olympics, although it is difficult to link unabashed hedonism with Spartan sporting spirit. But we digress.
Mr Karatzaferis was apoplectic with rage when he saw Belgian artist Thierry der Cordier's work, Asperges Me (a Gregorian chant which goes, "You will sprinkle me, Lord, with hyssop, and I will be made clean. You will wash me, and even more than snow will I be whitened.") at the show. The Guardian, which is no friend of the Right, described the painting thus: "On the right of the canvas was a cross, propped against a wall; on the left a fully erect penis. Upon closer observation (one) could see that semen was dripping from the crucifix." The senior Greek politician, stunned by the crudity, later told media that it was "the most obscene, immoral, shameless painting I had ever seen".
Such was the furore that followed, the Supreme Court Prosecutor had to launch an inquiry. The offending canvas was immediately removed as it "insulted religious sentiment" and because "vulgarity does not produce culture". The response across the political spectrum was uniformly scathing and nobody offered a dissenting point of view. There were no headlines in Greek newspapers denouncing the "moral police". On the other hand, popular mood was summed up by what Epiphanios Economon of Greek Orthodox Church had to say: "It's an insult to our morals, customs and our religion". But we digress again.
Chandramohan Srilamantula, who has been in the eye of the storm raging over his controversial work displayed at the Faculty of Fine Arts of Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda and for whom there has been an outpouring of support by libertines masquerading as Left liberals, not only lacks an artist's sensitivity and sense of aesthetics but also scruples and intellectual integrity. He is a plagiarist who has taken a shortcut to short-lived fame and should be shamed and shunned by his fraternity, instead of being feted.
His 'creation' that formed the centrepiece of the Faculty of Fine Arts show comprised a huge cross with Jesus Christ, his hands and feet limp. That by itself would not have been considered terribly innovative, so Chandramohan decided to add elements that would shock and awe viewers. Christ was shown with his penis hanging out, and semen dripping from the penis into a commode placed beneath the cross. The commode had fish in it. It is clear that Chandramohan, or his teacher or whoever is his muse, filched the idea from Thierry der Cordier's Asperges Me.
Chandramohan is welcome to pretend, as he does artistic merit, ignorance about the controversial canvas that triggered a huge protest in Athens four years ago, but that will convince only those who find genius in his perversion. But while his defenders may be truly ignorant of the wilful manner in which he has defiled a sacred symbol of Christianity, it is unlikely Chandramohan added fish to the commode to add a dash of colour to his 'art'. Had he dared put on public display fish feeding on Christ's semen in, say, Egypt where the stylised alpha is a venerated Coptic symbol, he would have been drawn, quartered and impaled on a stake. In this strange land of ours where limitless ignorance is palmed off as profound wisdom, Chandramohan's crafty attack on that which is held sacred has failed to strike a discordant note.
Worse, media has wilfully chosen to black out details that would help explain the outrage with which Christians and Hindus of Baroda have reacted to the delinquency in what the faculty's (now suspended) dean SK Panniker has famously described as his "personal bedroom". For instance, no newspaper or 24x7 news channel has bothered to inform readers and viewers that a second work on display, and also a manifestation of Chandramohan's twisted mind, was an unsophisticated rendition of a nude woman giving birth to a child, provocatively titled Durga Mata, or that his profanity has found expression in the denigration of Shiv and Vishnu at the same exhibition.
So, are we then to assume that the suppression of these facts was done with an ulterior motive? That is, to hide Chandramohan's guilt? Or is it that such abuse is inconsequential for those who claim to speak for 'liberal' India? I would suggest it is both: By aggressively heaping abuse on those who dared question Chandramohan's presumed right to denigrate religious icons and symbols, media and Page 3 libertines have skilfully sought to convert what is essentially an issue of a blasphemer purposefully hurting religious sensibilities into a spurious debate on freedom of expression. For all their Hauz Khas village sophistry, Chandramohan's defenders derive sick pleasure from such vicious perversity as was on display in Panniker's "personal bedroom".
Yet, our libertine brigade supports the obnoxious response to the equally obnoxious caricatures of Prophet Mohammed that appeared in Jyllands-Posten, a Danish newspaper. And they have no problems about the CPI(M) disallowing the screening of Taurus, a biographical film on Vladimir Ilyich Lenin directed by Alexander Sukorov, at the Calcutta Film Festival because it showed the Bolshevik leader being bathed by nurses in his old age. Comrade Sitaram Yechury, who has spoken up in support Chandramohan, could not be bothered about Sukorov's artistic freedom. Nor will our Left libertines who have come to the aid of a blasphemer-plagiarist dare demand that the ban on Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses be lifted.
It wouldn't be surprising if Chandramohan's supporters think Andres Serrano's Piss Christ is a great work of art. Provided they have heard about it. In case they haven't, they should ask Chandramohan. In the fetid world that is his mentor's "personal bedroom", Serrano is an inspiring force.
Email | Print | Rate:
|