In a grand tribute to Mughal art, 50 masterpieces go on display at the Institution.
Even if the India-United States relationship appears to be a monochrome parade of banality in the political sphere, the civilisational link between the two nations has never been more vibrant, especially in the art world.
All of this forthcoming year, the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, one of the premier organisations behind the vast, variegated art collections of this country, will host a grand tribute to Indian art from the Mughal period.
In a special media preview this week, the Smithsonian's Sackler Gallery, which specialises in Asian art, will display 50 masterpieces from the 15th-17th century period, from the times of Mughal kings including Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan. The exhibition will be called “Worlds within worlds.”
Debra Diamond, Associate Curator for South and Southeast Asian Art at the Smithsonian, said that these paintings, which were “often costly beyond reckoning,” displayed a “new naturalism” in their composition, blending Indian and European influences. A portrait of a son of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal typified this style, she said.
The display, aptly named the “Indian Summer,” will be part of a broader, year-long tribute to Asian art that will also include a “Japanese Spring,” featuring seminal prints such as Hokusai's Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji and a major work by Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei. This will be followed up with a third exhibition of artwork under the title of “Arabian Autumn.” Diamond emphasised the Sackler's sustained interest in displaying Indian art and noted that contemporary Indian art may be featured in future exhibitions in 2013.
Even as the Sackler celebrates its 25th anniversary, the gallery announced to media that it had received a boost from a $5 million gift from Dame Jillian Sackler, the New York-based philanthropist and widow of Arthur M. Sackler, after whom the Gallery is named. The gift will be used to establish an endowment to support the position of the Director and programmes at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and Freer Gallery of Art.
NARAYAN LAKSHMAN
Coloured newsrooms
Despite recent progress, newsrooms in the UK remain overwhelmingly white.
Imagine you’re the only non-white face in a “hideously white” organisation (a term famously used by a former BBC director-general to describe it) and as you drive into the office and park your car, a white gentleman dives into it thinking you’re a cab driver.
Actually, you don’t have to imagine. This is exactly what happened to an Indian-origin journalist at Sky News. Writing in the New Statesman on covert racism in British media, Anwar Tambe recalled how he had “stopped at the gates near the Sky News” when a man “jumped” into his car. “He thought I was the cabbie!”.
Despite progress in recent years, British newsrooms remain overwhelmingly white and, as Mr. Tambe pointed out, there are “still more black, Asian and Polish faces working in canteens than in newsrooms”.
“And if you want to get on screen or get up the management ladder on a mainstream channel, well, dream on. Media organisations are still run by white, male, middle-class professionals unwilling or unable to look outside and see that the world has changed,” he wrote.
Dorothy Byrne of Channel 4 recounted how a fellow white colleague at Granada TV where she once worked groaned, “That’s five too many” when she complained that “only five people from ethnic minorities worked in the whole place”.
Things have since improved but if you’re not the “right colour” you’re still likely to be mistaken for the canteen boy. Progress, eh?
HASAN SUROOR
China says no to reality TV
Sometimes things can get too real for comfort.
If you've had enough of the non-stop media attention heaped on Bigg Boss, perhaps you should consider moving to China. Authorities there have, this month, put in place curbs to stem the rapidly expanding reality television craze. Dating shows and American Idol-inspired competitions have created overnight celebrities in China, growing into a hugely profitable industry.
Worried by the increasing influence of trash-talking, Louis Vuitton-wielding pretty young things, the State watchdog this month said it would cut two-thirds of “racy” programmes on China's 34 satellite channels, reducing weekly prime-time entertainment programmes to 38, down from a whopping 126 last year.
The curbs were said to be triggered, in part, by the sensation caused last year by a young girl on Jiangsu Television's ‘If You Are The One', the most popular dating show. “I would rather weep in a BMW than smile [on your bicycle],” she coldly rejected a sincere suitor, sparking huge debate on modern Chinese values.
Critics of the curbs say the authorities' real concern is not bad taste, but that the shows were simply too honest, bringing open debate on issues concerning young Chinese, from rising housing prices and nosy parents to the difficulties of finding a good job. The shows were holding up a mirror to today's Chinese society in sharp contrast from the stale propaganda of historical dramas. “These dating shows are a breakthrough,” one professor said, “as they are putting in sensitive, unspeakable truths on the screen.”
In announcing the curbs, the State watchdog railed at “excessive entertainment” and “bad taste”, calling instead for “promoting traditional virtues and socialist core values.” One wonders how that will work for the TRPs.
ANANTH KRISHNAN
