A Common Man’s view towards ART

Art is a creation of an individual who through his thinking, depicts something which gives meaning to a certain theme. People when shown that creation usually is spellbound mostly. The praise which the people shower towards the art and the artist is what every artist wants, that his creation or depiction is given attention and praise.

For a common man, art is something where,
– They can praise the art
– Then click lots and lots of pictures
– Pose around the art

This all looks normal, doesn’t it? But I would like to highlight some aspects here. Yesterday I had been to the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival which happens every year in Church-gate where students from different Fine-Arts Colleges showcase their talent and their thoughts. It’s free to enter and yes you are allowed to click photos but from a distance. There are boundaries drawn showing the crowd, not to enter as it may destroy the art.

There were many creations where one was of a round structure with glass panels on the top, behind and front of you, and even beside you. Space was only for 2-3 people to go and experience it. What was there to experience?
The panels were kept in such an angle that you could see the entire place from all the glass panels.

What did the people do?

They have a bigger group. So, it’s obvious, they would want to take a groupie pic, right? So what if it comes on an expense to the artist or the team? They don’t care a damn!

In front of me at least 2-3 panels were broken. The artist was tired of explaining it to people, but no one listens. Later I found out that this festival is for 10 days and for 5-6 days, 18 panels were broken!

Every panel costing around 750 rupees(10 $). How much loss to that creation, to the money? But what does the common man think of?
Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp display pic, etc. This is demeaning.

One more creation was of a weighing scale, weighing the “Woman gender” and “Law”. The post handling the scale had news articles stuck to it representing all the RAPE cases reported. What did people do to mess this up? They just didn’t read it. All they cared for is a pic with a weighing scale. awesome right?

Losers!!

Guys were posing with a cool hand gesture which kind of depicted like they were proud of it and would want to do more!! The worse part was girls were posing too. What a shame. I went up to 2 girls who were planning to decide which pose to give. I asked them to read before they clicked.
Once they did, they simply walked away with embarrassment clearly mentioned on their faces.

Such a shame that a common man views art just like another showpiece to click photos with. While leaving we met an artist who had given up all hopes as he was telling us his story of how people man-handled his art right in front of him and he was helpless. If only he had a machine gun.
My overall visit was good, but I ended up with a headache trying to control my anger and disappointment.