an evening a few days before the show a group of us sat down to figure out what vaibhav was up to in his work and what he was about to show... coincidently, as always, we had all four vaibhavs with us; vaibhav, the simple/common/innocent man; vaibhav, the painter/artist; vaibhav, the thinker/idealist/philosopher and then there was vaibhav my friend and me, shady... this is what took place...
me: toh bhaisahab, sab kaam tayar hai
my friend: almost tayar hai, thought maybe we could see it together, maybe some suggestions from any of you
me: yes, yes, let’s see it, it will be fun, don’t mind if we trouble you on occasions, sala hamari buri aadat hai, sudharna mushkil hai
my friend: hey, its fine, it will all help me to clearly understand what me has done and what could be done further... toh bhaisahab shuru karte hai! since its a team work between me and the other three vaibhavs, we will all keep chipping in from time to time
the artist: as in our work before, i have mostly tried to capture the reality which we do not see with our naked eyes nor can we capture with the camera, this is the reality me tries to explore
the common man : yes, this is also the reality that me tries to deal with in my daily life
the thinker: and then i use the titles or text to suggest directions for entry into the work, at times being “punny”, but mostly as a way of inducing the viewer’s interaction with the work
the common man: it is fun for me when the work is interactive, me can play with it and so can others, understanding and absorption becomes that more easier
me: yes, for sure, have we not seen how difficult art has been made to look by these super serious and intellectually solid, globally accepted and written-about art works
the thinker: with this set of works and in general, i have been getting more and more conscious of how this thing called urbanisation is fast spreading its reach taking over all that is around me... land that was and had always been of the people, the rural land as one would say now, is slowly but steadily taken over for construction sites to facilitate these new super cities that a certain set of people desire
my friend: the take-over is not even slow, it is kind of fast, brutal and scary... on my last trip to my home in nagpur, me could not make much difference between there and here, that is bombay... everything has started becoming the same, rather everything is been worked up so as to look the same
me: yes, uniformity makes it easy for the authorities to govern us
common man: also the way people behave, their attitude towards life and other people around them is now becoming so similar to the ones here, the culture, if you want to call it so, is almost becoming similar
the thinker: almost everyone is talking and on some occasions is happy about the prices of land there and here being the same
me: yes, it is a part of the larger plan, we have already seen it unfold in and around bombay, you toh for sure must be feeling it all the time for you stay in new bombay, the so called “planned” new part of the city
the artist: we have kind of tried to deal with this journey of ours in the work “objects in the mirror are closer than they appear”
my friend: it almost feels like the construction is made and buildings are kept ready and slowly the need is created and they will get filled, maybe they are our “new cash crop”
the common man: so many places are now empty, wonder how they are going to manage to fill in those and still we find new ones being build
my friend: but it won’t be surprising for we have already been seeing how these buildings and the malls and the other “necessities” of the new planned towns work together
the thinker: maybe it is us who are responsible for this consumerist attitude of ourselves
me: it is both ways, the authorities plan it and we ignorantly give into it, also isn’t it that some of us are part of the authorities... anyways, aage badte hai... it is fun that you have used many mediums and very nicely interwoven them, kind of made them dependent on each other... there is manual work through painting, and constructing/making, and then there is the new media through the use of video, l.e.d. lights and other mechanisms to induce movements and then the use of story-telling, an age old form of expression and also clever use of popular imagery... everything together kind of helps, specially in a work like the one with the bullock-cart
the thinker: it tries to look at many things, and their dependency on each other, there is the land, and the now use of it for the fancy set of constructions and then there is “rural” side of our part of the world which is getting lost and then the use of electricity and other easily available facilities in the city which are getting rare and costlier in the “rural” parts
my friend: a basic thing like electricity which is utilised mostly as a necessity in the “rural” parts, is so carelessly wasted in a city like ours
me: it is nice of you that you in your day to day life keep reminding people around you about the same
my friend: friends almost say kya pakata hai sale, philosophy band kar
the thinker: yes, it is sad when people tend to push these basic workable issues in the realm of philosophy
me: it is kind of endless where you keep talking and working towards it, aur koi option bhi toh nahi hai!
my friend: kind of sounds negative but may be its true, me can tell and tell and if someone doesn’t listen me will do it myself as long as me can do it
me: the title of the show is interesting too, uske baaremein kuch bologe
the thinker: “beautiful dirt: sunder mitti”, mitti=soil, but maybe dirt for the urban dwellers, for they seem to be all the time trying to clean it away, as if it was dirt; also mitti was something fertile, something we all lived by, but now this urban fertility, the growing constructions, what we do to the land now is kind of dirt for some of us
me: badiya hai! hee hee, hope the show goes well and you sell well and give some of the moneys to me, maybe lot of it to me, hee hee
my friend: Tere muh me pizza aur burger…
me: wada pav chalega…hee hee
Dialogues between Himanshu s and Vaibhav