Cholamandal Centre for Contemporary Art, Chennai, S. India

“I have been feeling ever since freedom came, that the artists of the big towns of Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi and Madras, have been cut off from their roots and become individualist artists in the European sense. They have little or no contact with people and have totally removed themselves from their native landscapes. In this way they have also broken away from the craft centers of India’s small towns and villages. Consciously or unconsciously, all of you in Cholamandal (artists’ village) may have wanted to break away from the borrowed abstractions of the West and return to your inherited impulses.

“In the works of the Cholamandal artists which I have seen in the last 20 years, I have noticed that most of you are experimenting with synthetic forms, transforming the old imagery with new materials into a futuristic art. On every occasion, when I have been asked, anywhere in the country, about the future of the arts, I have asked my ardent young friends to go to Cholamandal to see what is possible and (then) found their own artist villages so that they can get back to their roots and away from the derivative influence that so often ensnares the artists of our big cities.”

With these words, renowned Indian author and founder of Marg Publications, Mulk Raj Anand (1905-2004) endorsed the Cholamandal Centre for Contemporary Art as a starting point for native Indian visual artists to discover their own unique direction. It is likely that the collection has changed several times over the years. In fact, I saw a good number of non-Indian names attached to the sculptures displayed in the garden. The only connection to Indian themes I recognized, was the medium used: granite (which is ubiquitous in this part of the world). For traditional Indian art (especially in granite) you would do well to travel 50 km south to the historic stonecutters town of Mamallapuram.

Peter Koelliker; pkoelliker8@yahoo.com