ReveRie with Raza on the occasion of Nirantar: The Aesthetic Continuum
UmA NAir
ReveRie with Raza In an age where contemporary art has changed in mediums and language, scope and intent, this book weighs in on the moodiness, methodology, efforts, mental blitzkriegs and inner workings of modern master of art Sayed Haider Raza. This book unravels the workings of Raza’s oeuvre and life at the age of 94 years. It is an attempt at appraising and transmitting the prevailing winds of intent and insight in the works of Raza through conversations with him about contemporary art. Living now in Delhi, Raza is going through a revolution in which he is bringing back his past in his works—he is ploughing the depths of past trends in his use of colour fields, in contextualizing genres in his journey of the ‘Bindu’ and explaining intuitive strategies that reflect his journeys. Looking at Raza’s art is an intimate act of prolonged engagement. The Bindu too has transformed through decades—it signifies a different tenor in a world torn by terrorism and death. In tone and technique Raza is meticulous, historically informative, and has a sensitive yet straight-eyed approach that often takes the form of a discourse that invites cogent considerations; his reflections of spirituality and his favourite poets Rilke and Kabir build up into a flashback tinted in-your-face reflection that might involve the desire to dig deeper into his quotations. Nevertheless, in his own specific way, Raza brings to his own works that essential recipe of criticism illustrated in essence with his own brand of expertise and taste. When he discusses his works done over the past two years, he travels through verbal and visual dynamics, and gives us a set of references and details that define his sensibility that brims to an inner core of intellectual and aesthetic insignias. In his twilight years, Sayed Haider Raza unravels as a modern master who comes through more like a sage who swims in the fervour and ferment of thoughts shaped by 60 years in Paris as well as formative years in India. With 104 illustrations and 2 photographs
ReveRie with Raza on the occasion of Nirantar: The Aesthetic Continuum
UmA NAir
in association with
Mapin Publishing
First Published in 2016 by Akar Prakar in collaboration with The Raza Foundation in association with Mapin Publishing on the occasion of the 94th birthday of S.H. raza and coinciding with Nirantar: The Aesthetic Continuum recent show of paintings by S.H. raza. The publishers reena and Abhijit Lath of Akar Prakar thank S.H. raza and Ashok Vajpeyi of raza Foundation.
All rights reserved under international copyright conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Text © Uma Nair Photographs © manish Pushkale iSBN: 978-93-85360-15-2 (mapin) iSBN: 978-1-935677-72-7 (Grantha) LCCN: 2016934289
Simultaneously published in the United States of America in 2016 by Grantha Corporation E: mapin@mapinpub.com
Copyediting: Uma Nair Proofreading: Ankona Das / mapin Editorial Editorial support: Akar Prakar Art Advisory Archival research: raza Foundation and Akar Prakar Design and Production: manish Pushkale Printed in india at www.archanapress.com
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Front and Back Cover Tiryak Acrylic on canvas 150cm x 30cm 2011
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Foreword The year was 2010. my first impression of raza Saab was of a man of grandeur, subtle style and elegance. On the last day of raza Saab’s stay at our home, he stopped to turn around and pay obeisance to the room he had been staying in. i realized that not only did he embody the impressions i had of him but he was also a generous and grateful person. This act of reverence also made me put him on top of my list of people whom i admire. raza Saab’s work always comes with a predominance of certain hues of colours, may be it depends on his mood or frame of mind at that particular point of time. in 2013 the colours were very light and frothy, last year they were earthier and this year i find them bright and balanced, though i must say that each year the works are always effortless and meditative. At the age of 94, he is still a remarkable artist and personality who works and lives in the present moment, free of the struggles of the past or future. His works are soulful and it is a matter of pride for us to present his solo show again this year. in fact, this book contains all the images of his works over the past five years that have been presented by us. i thank Ashok Vajpeyi and the raza Foundation for their trust in Akar Prakar, and critic and curator Uma Nair for her wonderful insights on raza in this book. i take this opportunity to acknowledge the enthusiasm and support of our online partner mojarto.com, an NDTV venture, iTC Sonar and, of course, our publisher mapin. Reena Lath and Abhijit Lath Directors, Akar Prakar
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Nirantar The Aesthetic Continuum When recently a show of raza’s latest works opened in Delhi, many art lovers were surprised to discover that all the works were done in 2015, i.e. in the 94th year of age of the artist. Some wondered if there is any other artist in the world who may be painting and showing in the 94th year of his/her age. Though there might be whom one does not know of, one cannot think of anybody else. raza’s life and art have now merged into each other: he lives to paint, he paints to live. The zest for life becomes quest of art. As if raza has been born to paint unto his last. Watching him paint every day, in spite of his ripe old age and its accompanying health problems, is both life-sustaining and art-affirming. A life which is now quintessentially art. A life which becomes art itself. Or, to put it in another way, an art which becomes life in all its luminosity, colours and intimations. For long, one of the primary concerns of raza in his art has been to be in constant communion with the cosmic. The universe of raza’s art is, in artifice and spirit, a cosmos of colours and shapes, of remembrances and resonances, of assurance and celebration, indeed of affirmation in which the human and the divine flow ceaselessly into each other. Deeply meditative, vibrantly luminous, masterly colourful and richly intense, here is an art which demands both attention and reflection. it has an elegance which the most beautiful always has. its spiritual complexity emanates from its apparent simplicity and competently handled geometry. Life and art, both, are constant—nirantar, so is raza in the wonderfully integrated domain of his life and art. it is this nirantarata, this constancy, as it were, which his latest shows bring forth so powerfully and undeniably. Neither life nor art of raza pause or flounder or stop. They are so movingly, almost breathtakingly, nirantar full of energy and desire to resonate the cosmos itself. A series of three shows, one each in Delhi, Kolkata and mumbai, is yet another occasion to savour in humility the latest works of a master. His relentless quest for form, colour and vision remains both a matter of deep joy and genuine aesthetic excitement. Ashok Vajpeyi Executive Trustee The raza Foundation
ReveRie with Raza Uma Nair “True alchemy lies in this formula: ‘Your memory and your senses are but the nourishment of your creative impulse’.” — S.H. raza quotes Arthur rimbaud
Over a week of reflections and reverie punctuated by the silence of sagely contemplation Sayed Haider raza sat and swung back and forth, like a proverbial pendulum, mulling over the ebbs and crests of his life, sometimes painting, sometimes sighing with a sentimental sadness that brings alive the beauty of a thousand dreams that could softly burn in the embers of thought. Known as the creator of the primordial Bindu, Sayed Haider raza’s ‘Bindu’ belongs to his own gestation of a period of 60 years in Paris. it is the iconic rendition of the story of the seed of prakriti, or nature, woven around transformation; control and release; material; form; and space. it is about watching and experiencing the evanescent forms in nature and congealing them into the geometric concentrics of creation. it is about understanding the difference between pearls and ambergris, and between the confines of an indian puja room and the expanse of the sea that mirrors and embraces the pancha tatva—the five elements. While his work straddles the indian concept of cosmos and creation, the evolution of the Universe that arises out of the pancha mahabhutas or Five Great Elements: Fire, Earth, Water, Air and Ether all coalesce to form brilliant syncopations in the lyrical moods of an indianesque sonata. raza remains rooted to the philosophy of the creation of the being that exalts all. These five categories delineate the five densities of all visible and invisible matter, and have physiological as well as psychological correspondences with the five senses as well as with states of mind and emotions. Over the years he has called his search a result ‘of a parallel inquiry’—he uses the phrase ‘ekta mein anekta’ (unity in diversity). A cohesive, cerebral, colourist who has moved from dense vibrancy to soft ethereality, raza’s paintings resonate the passionate hot colours of india with all their symbolic, emotive value. While drawing from memories of childhood spent in the forests, he has also been inspired by indian metaphysical thought. raza’s works position a slash of red, a blotch of blue, and a grinding orchestration of yellows and sunset oranges.
ReveRie with Raza
Brimming with angles and horizons, lightning flat zones and awkward arcing profusion, it could well contain a grid, a spiky bit, a blurry thing or just a stroke. Now, more than 60 years of works places him in his own orbit—raza’s works are more than a hallmark of concentric coloured rings. There’s altogether a silence in the shapes, the colours rippling into one another. And now you can recall to mind that a work by raza will be an affair with auras, the essence of ethereal matter, sounds and vibrations, perhaps ecclesiastical and theosophical stuff born out of the shlokas of the Vedas. This collection of works at Akar Prakar is a suite that is pre-occupied with imminent energies. raza is a modernist involved with the plastic qualities of art and its emergence on the surface. raza has an unending quest for pure form; he works on the mapping out of a metaphorical space in the mind that rekindles the third eye. The ‘Bindu’ he is now known for has become iconic for the country, sacred in its symbolism, mystic in its aura of metaphysical tints, it places his work in the Advaita philosophy. His works in this show give an inherent symbolism of the silence that raza now straddles into his rippled voids so that he presents solitude more as an epiphany, the limpid pool of the sounds of silence that echo the resonance of the sea of tranquillity. But his years of solitude have worked within his own penumbra and the Bindu now becomes an entity that makes the whirling world stand still. At 94 Sayed Haider raza is frail, with a hazy grip of night and day. But the best hours of the day are spent in sitting at his beloved blank canvases putting his delicate hands to paint and brush. Watching this maestro create his oeuvre is a sojourn in silence. Solitude and silence have defined the last years of raza’s life. Spending time with a master in his studio is an odyssey of many moods and meanderings. “Please keep talking,” he says with a gentle smile and we begin a tour de force of thoughts—a journey that moves back and forth as this veteran looks forward to the past and gives us his reflections born of the zeitgeist of memories that overlap in periods that have run into each other like a collage of corollaries. Colour and Tradition “Abstraction in art is no more abstract than isolated words in literature.” 8
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Our conversation starts with the words of the famed genius Zao Wou Ki, the abstractionist who gave the world a new language in the understanding of the abstract world through pulsating landscapes. raza smiles and adds his viewpoint, “Abstraction in art is a process—it is a continuous searching for all forms that are present and that may be present in the landscape of the human mind.” Can abstraction be purely an expression of an artist’s personal life? But look deeper and it seems as if it becomes a mapping of sorts in which everyone has a uniqueness of personality, a distinctive idea of perception and their understanding and translating of expressions are all different. Does abstraction have its roots in an artist’s idea of tradition? “Long ago, when I began, I stated that abstraction is rooted in tribhanga. The three primary colours form a definition of nature’s identity. Tribhanga is tradition. Colour for me is expression, colour for me is the essence of tradition. Tradition has two parts—the root and the spirit of its ideology. If we have to continue along the path of tradition then it must be continued with a root and ideology that is alive. When tradition is uprooted and left without its root and spirit, it becomes an anchorless emptiness— a void without any inner meaning. As artists we have the responsibility of creating new traditions… (in my works that I’m doing these days) I employ and recreate themes of my past—ranging from the intense colours of the forests of Madhya Pradesh to the Bindu which I believe is the essence of all life—I am always wanting to reach back into the past to recall the connection of our ancient history with the patterns of the present. I work with primary colours— red, blue, yellow.” Raza Elucidates His Philosophy: “After years of work, I find even today that these two aspects of life preoccupy me—the Bindu and the language of silence, they seem vital and form an integral part of my paintings. There is a multitude of variations but the theme prevails. It constitutes the body of an experience lived. Though in the act of painting the real problems remain essentially formal, it is important to constantly participate and be present in the experience. For me, the Bindu is that rare exaltation where the Om finds a complete realization within the Bindu. For me the creation of Om Nad, Bindu Nad and Shabd Nad are all born of a persistence that has led to vision and perception. I always like to draw parallels with the Sanskrit shlokas.” 9
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energy of peace that expands and moves through space to embrace everything in its inner harmony. Yes the Shanthi-Bindu is the ultimate communion.” raza explains the journey with the lines of French poet rainer maria rilke, “The work of the eyes is done. Go now and do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you.” Beyond the Bindu While he gets lost in the Bindu we talk about abstraction in the West. Particularly mark rothko. At his retrospective at the NGmA in Delhi he had done a set of three works that were only in this black and grey tonality. Very much a rothko intent. raza smiles and explains, “Rothko’s work opened up lots of interesting associations for me. It was like a door that opened to another interior vision. Yes I felt that I was awakening to the music of another forest, one of a subliminal energy. Rothko’s works brought back the images of the jaapmala—where the repetition of a word continues till you achieve a state of elevated consciousness. One of the works in this show Tirkaya is born out of the same perception of the jaapmala. Rothko’s works made me understand the feel for spatial perception. I remember being fascinated by his Seagram Murals, there was a spiritual perception of life’s horizons. That depth is what abstraction is about. There is a doha (couplet) of Kabir that aptly says: ‘Had ko take auliyan behad take pir Had behad dono take tako kahe kabir’.” in one of his many reflections with this critic, raza poignantly depicted the helplessness and isolation of the individual in the modern world, “When we look at the universe and at ourselves I know that we are so small, so little in comparison with the universe; I knew that we are nothing... But to know that we are nothing is both overwhelming and at the same time reassuring. Those dimensions beyond the range of human thought, are so utterly and completely overpowering. I think we are cast into a complex world of illusions and sad and traumatic realities. “Amidst the chaos of illusions into which we are cast headlong, there is one thing that stands out true, and that is—love. All the rest is nothingness, an empty void. When I speak of love—nothing can match the love between man and woman. I consider that the best emblem of belonging and caring and giving of yourself. That is why when people ask me about the Bindu now I say that the Bindu is
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no longer a symbol of anything calm, it is a symbol of great sorrow and deep sadness in a world where there is so much violence against woman, where a woman’s love is crushed by man’s selfishness. “Over the years I have understood that the Bindu is not only about its use of form and empty space, but about the relationship of its poetic as well as traditional connection of the human spirit with nature. So, as you see in my works, the colours and lines are never merely accidental. They arrive at some purpose harmoniously; they have a role to play—they not only stimulate light but also evoke formal and melodic rhythms. In that journey I came to experience Nad.” ‘Nad’ is the holistic embodiment of sound—the interrelationship of sound and silence. The interrelationship of sound and silence is again a polarity. “How can you understand silence if you have not appreciated the nuances of sound,” asks raza. The classical arts in india are that amalgamation of so many swaras. Nad the spiritual energy that emanates from a profound awareness of sanctified sound. “I realized that I could be enchanted with sound by listening to the silence that lay within me. The third eye, it probes and unleashes other perceptions.” raza explains how Paul Klee imagined himself as a large omniscient eye looking down on nature, and he wrote: “‘The artist is a man, himself nature and a part of nature in natural space.’ Then there was Cezanne who said: ‘in the eternity of nature there may be nothing, there may be everything.’” And so raza comes to the sensory feeling when he talks of the act of ‘seeing with your ears, and listening with your eyes.’ Then the interrelating of man and nature is eternal. it is that insight that becomes the materiality and unravels how the Bindu became Bindu Nad. We talk of music and raza dwells on the eternal question what is a raga. When the music lover in me responds and states that it is a melody that colours the heart of the listener and colour in indian art is ecstasy, he smiles gently and adds: “The Bindu Nad is a concept of time and space extending into infinity. I once did a painting only in black and grey. I wrote the lines: ‘And evaghanibhuta Kachitabhayeti Ta bindu tam’ When the senses are alerted the qualities of seeing and hearing are in unison, and the energy becomes a state of sublime bliss.”
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it wouldn’t be wrong to state that you must view raza’s works in the circle of silence. it means many things over years, times and moments. After a sagely contemplation he reflects: “Silence for me is the language of solitude. I need the silence to feel the ripples that is why I must hear my paintings speak with eyes. I must see it with my ears. I like it to a river, a sea, and a man’s heart. Let me explain: Love can be expressed even in silence. ‘Main chahata hun ki main na kahun, Phir bhi meri baat khushboo ki tarah udke tere dil mein sama jaye.’ Love can be contained in what is said as well as what is unsaid. It is like looking at a beautiful woman—it isn’t only a face, it is her persona, her soul, her inner being.” raza quotes French poet rainer maria rilke, “I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world.” Sitting here in Delhi when asked if he misses France and the streets of Paris/ Gorbio, raza says emphatically: “France gave me la sens plastique—an understanding of vital elements, clear thinking. And a rationality of a higher order. It also gave me savoir vivre—the ability to perceive and follow what is discernible in life. It taught me to distinguish between the tangible and the intangible. The ability to seek the unknown through the known. It taught me to look at India with new eyes—the two dimensionality of objects on a single plane. I learnt to merge pictorial space with spiritual reality. Colour became a process of philosophical and psychological entity. France taught me that memory is an asset not a burden. The Bhagavad Gita came alive. French poet Rilke says the only journey is the one within, I understand these words now.” Like a poet who makes himself a visionary through a long, boundless, and systematized segregation of all the senses, raza now sounds more poetic. He can ruminate about all forms of love, of suffering, of madness in the modern world, with a sense of being an observer. But the aftermath of that observation is his own inner sojourn, in which he searches within himself. in that quest it is as if he exhausts within himself all passions and poisons, and preserves their quintessential residues. in his own rhetoric of silence the artist has burst into an orbit of the unknown! At this age of 94 sitting on his chair lost in thought and bringing out the colour zones within the landscape of his mind, raza has cultivated his soul; it pulsates with the richness of insight and intensity. As the shades of the setting sun descend, you know that this modern master has redefined grace, this grace is the little something that clothes a deep and resonant moment of beauty—a beauty that lies beyond the parameters and 20
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present day diktats of physical beauty. This grace is a subtlety that resembles the rhythm of a line, the soul of a form, the spirituality of an endeavour. All the seductions of the play of colour on the human mind, colour at ease, the languor, the idleness, the strut, the lengthening, the nonchalance, the cadence of the density the suppleness of the body of colour against the play of the slender fingers on the grip of the brush. Having listened to and watched Sayed Haider raza over seven days, one is left with an aura of quiet admiration, the long beautiful hands present a veritable study in still life. in their tenuous and tender fragility the slight quiver is an insignia of the presence of an oak tree that stands testimony to time. As you hold his hands and say farewell, you know that can be another chapter in the life of this modern master. The intensity of the present moment is akin to eternity. You recall his favourite poet rilke’s words and walk down the stairs: “I love the dark hours of my being. My mind deepens into them. There I can find, as in old letters, the days of my life, already lived, and held like a legend, and understood.”
BiBLiOGrAPHY Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis Paul Klee, The Thinking Eye Carolyn Lanchner, MoMA Artists Series (volumes 1 & 2) Carolyn Lanchner, Fernand Leger Uma Nair, Roop Adhyatam rainer maria rilke, Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God rainer maria rilke, Letters to a Young Poet Arthur rimbaud, A Season in Hell/The Drunken Boat Arthur rimbaud, Illuminations mark rothko, The Artist’s Reality: Philosophies of Art William rubin, Picasso and Braque Pierre Schneider and michel ragon, Zao Wou Ki: Works, Writings, Interviews Lee Seds, The Legacy of Mark Rothko Ed. Ashok Vajpeyi, Raza Henri michaux and Zao Wou Ki
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2016
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Brahmaand • Acrylic on canvas • 101cm x 203cm • 2016
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2015
Gagan - Kiwad • Acrylic on canvas • 400cm x 100cm • 2015
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Kundalini • Acrylic on canvas • 100cm x 100cm • 2015
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mangal Kamna • Acrylic on canvas • 120cm x 150cm • 2015
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Neelambar • Acrylic on canvas • 60cm x 60cm • 2015
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Praat - Nabh • Acrylic on canvas • 40cm x 40cm • 2015
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roopakar • Acrylic on canvas • 40cm x 40cm • 2015
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Akar Prakar • Acrylic on canvas • 100cm x 100cm • 2015
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Valentine • Acrylic on canvas • 60cm x 60cm • 2015
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Jeevan Acrylic on canvas 120cm x 40cm • 2015
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Tree of Life Acrylic on canvas 60cm x 30cm • 2015
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Vriksha • Acrylic on canvas • 40cm x 40cm • 2015
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Sansar • Acrylic on canvas • 50cm x 50cm • 2015
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Shashwat • Acrylic on canvas • 120cm x 120cm • 2015
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UMa NaiR Writing for nearly three decades on contemporary Indian art can chisel one’s thoughts and provide an arsenal that brims on the volume and power of memory. Having penned reviews and observations for major newspapers like The Economic Times, Hindustan Times, and The Asian Age, Uma Nair believes no writing can happen without research. Nair’s monograph on Arpita Singh’s Wish Dream was penned as far back as 2005 but published by Saffronart in 2010. Nair’s admiration for Sayed Haider Raza goes back two decades when he would visit India during winter months and be part of solo showings.
MODERN & CONTEMPORARY ART
Reverie with Raza
On the Occasion of Nirantar: An Aesthetic Continuum Uma Nair
Nair believes that curating too is an exercise that must go beyond the books and walls. It must invite bouquets and brickbats, it must probe the darker secrets of an artist’s sensibility. Nair’s most important curatorial venture has been with the Lalit Kala Akademi in a show called ‘Moderns’ that has been sent to Jordan, Berlin and Vienna. She is currently researching the archives of the Lalit Kala Akademi in New Delhi.
PRINTED IN INDIA
136 pages, 104 colour illustrations 2 colour photographs 6.7 x 9” (170 x 229 mm), hc ISBN: 978-93-85360-15-2 (Mapin) ISBN: 978-1-935677-72-7 (Grantha) ₹1500 | $37.50 | £23 2016 • World rights
In an art world obsessed with the human figure and art writing in media reduced to barefoot journalism, Nair feels abstraction needs to be studied with a certain cerebral absorption. A lot of abstraction in India has been reduced to wanton colour strokes with no depth and nearly absent experience. Nair’s notes on Raza span nearly two decades and she was able to pick and preen into his past through the prism of the present.
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