I had an idea about what an award could mean to Sarnath Banerjee but I nevertheless had planned to ask him about that. Sarnath was shortlisted for this year’s Abraaj Group Art Prize 2015 at Art Dubai along with Setareh Shahbazi, Mounira Al Solh. It was finally won by Yto Barrada. But, Sarnath didn’t go to the function. He casually tells me that he went out shopping to get a new pair of chappals in Dubai. “I didn’t know it was a big affair. And I didn’t know that I had to be there. So when I reached for the party, I was not being let in because they didn’t recognise me,” chuckles the artist sipping hot chocolate at a restaurant.
It is not disdain towards the system that drives Sarnath. The artist is more interested in revisiting the past to look at stereotypes and myths of today. Our mundane urban lives with their quirks and eccentricities reflected in his graphic novels like “Corridor”, “The Barn Owl’s Wondrous Capers” or “The Harappa Files”.
Though the art world has embraced him, Sarnath still believes he is an outsider. He says he is a graphic novelist and not an artist.
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“And I am not the only one who feels like that. William Blake, Goya and many others felt like outsiders because they didn’t belong to the mainstream art. Why I exist in the art world is because of my alienation from the world of comics. The world of comics is phenomenally conservative and they hate innovation. The art world is much more generous. It allows me to invent. That’s why despite all its criticism, oversmart curators and schmoozers, art world is phenomenally successful,” says Sarnath.
For Abraaj, Sarnath is showing what he describes as an anthology of islands, something he has been fascinated with for a long time. The idea of inhabiting a circumscribed space intrigued him.
Living in Berlin for four years, he is happily raising his two-year-old son. Longing to come back to India, he had to leave post his marriage to Pakistani artist Bani Abidi, he says he won’t come back before his son turns six. “It will be complicated for him but at the same time I can’t deny him anything and why should I,” says Sarnath, adding that he has learnt to distance himself from everything.
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“I have become more reclusive and I am now doing things mainly for myself that’s why selling two works in three years is good enough for me.”
As for what’s coming up, he is now awaiting the release of “All Quiet in Vikas Puri”, his latest graphic novel that has the plot of corporatisation of water. “There are water wars. It is a cold war spy thriller. A visual essay on Manu where he would engage with other people’s text is also on the cards. I am also thinking of what to do with the archive of Illustrated Weekly of India I bought from Rafique Baghdadi. I wanted to do dioramas based on some historical personalities for Abraaj like the whole theatrical thing, get actors to enact those roles but may be later. I like corrupting history so I am rewriting a Nehruvian history. I am rewriting Illustrated Weekly,” says Sarnath.