DIGITAL COPY ON MAGZTERConvergent Boundaries:
Where Art and Literature
Meet
Moderated by Gayatri Sinha,
art editor, critic and curator
While boundaries between different
art forms and practices are becoming
increasingly blurred in recent times,
this panel features two cultural figures
who have worked at the crossroads of
multiple disciplines for several decades
- Javed Akhtar, poet, lyricist and
script-writer, and Gulammohammed
Sheik, artist and poet. This panel
will bring to the fore the inspiration
they have continued to draw from
literatures across cultures and
civilisations to their oeuvre.
Gulammohammed Sheikh: I do not remember ever
having felt ‘overwhelmed’ by literary experience
because I do not see the two disciplines as being
antagonistic to each other. Literature has been
a source of inspiration in a lot of historical
painting (Bihari Satsai, Chandayan, Khamsa of
Nizami, etc.) In fact, music too has served as
a seminal feature of ragamala paintings. In my
own work, I continued to write the series ‘Gher
Jatan’ (translated as ‘Returning Home’) in Gujarati
during the period I painted ‘Returning Home
after a Long Absence’ (1969–73). And I did not
feel overwhelmed by either of these in writing
or painting. The two disciplines differ not only
in mediums but also at times in orientation and
each make it clear what can and cannot be done
in them. Sometimes, certain things can be best
expressed in words rather than visuals or vice versa,
but at times both venture into similar trajectories.THe sPeakeRs' foRUM aT iNDia aRT faiR is wHeRe THe DiffeReNT
woRlDs of coNTeMPoRaRY aRT coNVeRGe, GiViNG Rise To New
iDeas, fResH PeRsPecTiVes aND a ‘Voice’ To THe NoN-coNfoRMiNG
TRajecToRies of aRT liViNG iNsiDe eqUallY NoN-coNfoRMiNG
PRacTiTioNeRs of aRT. we GiVe YoU aN exclUsiVe GliMPse of fiVe
ToPics foR DiscUssioN MaDe iNTeResTiNG aND iNsiGHTfUl NoT jUsT
BY ViRTUe of THeiR sUBjecT, BUT BY ViRTUe of THe coNTeNT THe
sPeakeRs BRiNG To iTIAF - Delhi Connecting Art/ feb 2016 - mar 2016 / arts illustrated /^71