In 2011, after M.F. Husain died in London at the age of 95, writer and filmmaker Ruchir Joshi wrote a sobering tribute to the artist’s life in The Telegraph, Kolkata. “Though he was possibly the nicest person among the Progressive Artists Group,” he wrote, “Husain was also perhaps the one with the least talent and originality.”
Joshi went on to emphasise Husain’s intense debt to both Picasso and Matisse, while acknowledging the complicated legacy he had left behind. “If Husain’s departure [in 2010] for Qatar... marked a defeat for a certain idea of modern India,” he wrote, “his death presents a challenge to those of us who felt diminished and humiliated by the old man’s exile.”
Whether you are an admirer of his art or not, Husain remains one of India’s most significant artists over a decade after his death. His work continues to be coveted by collectors, while the staggering multiplicity of his imagination remains unparalleled. The Rooted Nomad, opening this month at the Magazzini del Sale in Dorsoduro, Venice, is not only a deep dive into the modernist’s chequered life and multidimensional work, but also a timely reminder of the values he cherished and enshrined through his art and actions. (Incidentally, Husain, who participated in the 1953 and 1955 Venice Biennales, was one of the first artists from India to show his work there.)
Behind the scenes in Venice | Photo Credit: Mohammed Roshan
Presented by the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, and curated by Roobina Karode, director and chief curator of the KNMA, this immersive exhibition aims to signal Husain’s enduring relevance to a wider, global audience. One of the most significant challenges of curating such an ambitious show is the selection of works from “Husain’s vast oeuvre and prolific practice”, says Karode, “especially since his iconic works have been showcased extensively both inside and outside of India”. The idea has been to bring a “fresh perspective in representing him, while conceptually and experientially bridging the gap between the artist and the global audience”.
Chief curator Roobina Karode | Photo Credit: Mohammed Roshan
Merging the physical and virtual
The exhibition unfolds in two parts, as Karode explains: an introduction to the artist through a physical experience of his original works, such as Yatra (1955) and Blue Ganges (1966), which then leads the viewers into an immersive (virtual) experience in the latter part of the space.
The Rooted Nomad draws on nearly 160 works by Husain from the KNMA collection. Two years in the making, it includes motion graphics, live action, 2D and 3D animation of vignettes of his work, choreography, and sound design — seamlessly blending “to tell the complex story of this singular figure”.
Husain, forever inventive and curious, an artist who pushed against the imagined boundaries between ‘popular’ and ‘serious’ art, would have loved this approach. As a young man he had painted posters for movies, and later in life he actually made several films (the Bollywood actor Madhuri Dixit being one of his muses). Performance was in his DNA, as was a penchant for making bold statements about his beliefs, often to his detriment in his homeland, India.
Indeed, the title, The Rooted Nomad, captures the twin forces that ruled his life: his deep roots in India, having come of age before Partition, nurtured by the syncretism of yore; and a restless urge to traverse the world, to soak in the cosmopolitanism of a nomadic life, where every idea was his for the taking. “The breadth of his experiences,” as Karode puts it, “defied a narrow vision of India.”
Yatra
Not only did Husain reject religious polarisation, he also refused to abide by the established rules of the art world. From being a cinema hoarding painter to designing furniture pieces to making wooden toys and directing films, “all helped him to arrive at a modernism that was rooted in the sensibilities and his understanding of India as an emergent nation”, she adds.
Apart from his instant sketches made in situ, drawings, calligraphy, and poems, the space will also feature photographs of Husain by artists and friends Parthiv Shah and Krishen Khanna, among others. “The only painting that is overwhelming in its size [82 x 130 inches], scale and impact is Karbala [1990, “an intensely evocative imagery of migration, mourning and martyrdom that unsettles the viewer”], which KNMA will be exhibiting for the first time,” Karode shares.
Karbala
“More than seven decades since his work was first exhibited at the 1953 Venice Biennale, KNMA is honoured to bring this project to Venice [coinciding with the 2024 biennale]. This 360-degree immersive experience will unveil Husain’s dreams and desires through moving images and soundscapes. It is a labour of love for India’s most compelling modernist, who I admired greatly and with whom I enjoyed a long friendship.”Kiran NadarFounder, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art
A man who refused to censor himself
What would India in 2024, heading into elections, fuelled by communal hate and disharmony, make of a figure like Husain? An itinerant soul, who let his imagination run unfettered, mapped his beloved nation barefoot, was excommunicated in old age (on self-imposed exile in the last years of his life), but feted all around the world, he would most certainly have been unwelcome — an anomaly in a country where the dominant political project is directed at creating a homogenous population with like-minded belief, values, and aspirations.
Husain in 1995
The more interesting question, perhaps, is to ask what Husain would have made of India had he lived to see this day? How would his inventive spirit, which left its imprint not only on canvas and film, but also over architectural sites and public spaces by creating murals and frescoes, feel about being left out of the grand project of self-transformation that India is undergoing?
During his lifetime, Husain repeatedly stepped into hornets’ nests. He angered bigots and fanatics of all colours, refused to censor his art, and provoked reactions that made us, as a nation, question ourselves and fragilities. That it’s no longer possible to show Husain’s work in such an immense scale in the country is a bitter reminder of the many miles we have regressed since the artist’s passing in the last one decade.
The exhibition is on till November 2024.
The writer is based in Delhi.
