Time to stand up for tribal art

Prakrut is an interesting art show that is currently on view in New Delhi. It's interesting for what it showcases, though, ironically, and unfortunately, that is also the reason why there hasn't been as much buzz around it as it merits.

Organised by The Raza Foundation and curated by senior artist Akhilesh, it showcases the work of the next generation of tribal artists of the country. That's a seminal effort as tribal art is a rather neglected genre of Indian modern art, and strangely for an independent, self-asserting country like India, is regarded with the Western prism as the 'other' or 'outsider' art.

With the art world continuing in its slack season, and stirrings of life being only gradually reported in the form of new shows, I think it's a great opportunity to take a look at the market for tribal art in India, in the backdrop of the Prakrut exhibition. First, however, a few words about Prakrut.

Mainstreaming tribal art

On view at Sangeet Shyamala in New Delhi's Vasant Vihar, Prakrut is the brainchild of the author and poet Ashok Vajpeyi, the managing and life trustee of The Raza Foundation, which was set up by Sayed Haider Raza, one of India's most important modern artists, in 2001.

Raza, who lived in Paris for sixty years, never lost touch with the country of his birth. In fact, his links with India were not purely cosmetic, and went beyond the photo-op lip service. He continued to work for the education of children and promotion of the arts in his native Mandla district of Madhya Pradesh, where he was born on 22 February 1922. Mandla, incidentally, is a tribal dominated district in the central Indian state, where the poster-boy of Indian tribal art, Jangarh Singh Shyam (1962-2001), was 'discovered' by another great Indian modern artist, Jagdish Swaminathan in the early 1980s.

To recount a story well-known in the arts circle, Swaminathan, as director of the newly formed Bharat Bhavan in Bhopal, was scouting for talent in the tribal interiors of the state. He came across a young Gond tribal artist, Jangarh Singh Shyam, in Patangarh village of Mandla district. Swaminathan took Shyam under his wings, showcasing his paintings at the inaugural exhibition of Bharat Bhavan in February 1982. Soon, Shyam was scaling heights of success and fame, which took him across the seven seas as well (unfortunately, though, Shyam would commit suicide while on a residency at the Mithila Museum in Japan in 2001).

At this seminal juncture of arts in Bhopal, Vajpeyi was the Culture Secretary with the Madhya Pradesh government, and the driving force behind the setting up of Bharat Bhavan. It's his unique sensitivity for all arts and culture that reflects in the packed programming of the Raza Foundation throughout the year. Talking about the need for a more concerted focus on tribal art, Vajpeyi says, "It started as a radical initiative at Bharat Bhavan by Swaminathan to bring attention to the 'other' art, the folk and tribal art, and to bust the notion that identified contemporary art exclusively in terms of urban art. Contemporary art cannot and should not be defined thus, as that would mean keeping a lot of art of India outside the purview of modern art."

Prakrut, therefore, tries to address the continued side-stepping of tribal art by the so-called mainstream art. By bringing focus on the new generation of tribal artists from across the country, it showcases not only the diversity of the genre but also the unique ways in which these artists amalgamate their tribal heritage with their lived modern reality. It features works by 20 young artists who hail from tribes as diverse as Gond and Baiga in central India, and Lepcha and Apatani from the North-East, to name a few.

As this happens to be Raza's centenary year, the foundation is holding an exclusive Gond tribal art show in Mandla as well, from 19-23 July.

The market for tribal art

It's anybody's guess that the market for tribal art in India is not what it should be. Considering the immense richness of tribal culture in India - it boasts of the largest tribal population in the world outside of Africa—it's a pity that we choose to consider it as 'the other.' But for Swaminathan in the 1980s, it would have continued to languish on the sidelines of mainstream art as exalted artisanal/ crafts practice.

Jangarh Singh Shyam's success did inspire his community members to take their traditional art seriously, and members of his immediate family continue to practice what has come to be known as Jangarh Kalaam (Jangarh's style) within the larger scope of Gond art. However, none has been as successful as Jangarh's work in the international art market. His early work, 'Paysage avec Araignée (Landscape with Spider)', executed in 1988, remains the most expensive work of Indian tribal art ever sold. At a Sotheby's auction of South Asian Art in New York on 16 September 2010, it fetched $31,250 (approx. Rs 24.98 lakh at current rate).

Among the practicing Gond artists, Durga Bai Vyam is one of the most well-known. She was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India earlier this year, and her works continue to sell well at auctions. One of her works, that she co-created with Subhash Singh Vyam, sold for Rs 78,648, at an auction by StoryLTD, a subsidiary of Saffronart, in June 2020.

Jivya Soma Mashe (b. 1934), the veteran Warli artist from Maharashtra, commands a well-known signature in the world of art as his works sell under his name and not just as generic Warli art. One of his successful works at the auctions has been an 'Untitled' and undated creation in cow dung and acrylic on canvas, which sold for Rs 4.03 lakh at a Saffronart auction, titled 'Living Traditions: Folk and Tribal Art', in April 2017.

Saffronart, in fact, continues to regularly feature tribal and folk art works in its auctions, thereby gradually creating a thriving market for this very important segment of modern and contemporary Indian art. For example, some important Baiga works were sold by StoryLTD in its auctions in February this year. Works by Baiga artists such as Manoj Godpal, Ramrati Bai Baiga, Santoshi Bai Baiga and Jhulan Bai Baiga achieved modest prices, approximately under Rs 50,000. This makes the market for tribal art a good investment opportunity for those willing to start a collection with affordable works.

As the historical evolution of Indian art shows, the indigenous elements of the country's art will definitely find their place under the sun, just as a unique Indian identity found its moorings in a newly independent country, when the yolk of western dominance was rejected vehemently by young Indian artists. Indian tribal art can likened to be in that position right now, and with the newer generation of tribal artists melding modernity with their tribal traditions, there is every reason to believe that this broad genre of Indian art will evolve into something that market will have to sit up and take notice.

(The writer is a New Delhi-based journalist, editor and arts consultant. She blogs at www.archanakhareghose.com)