stinking, unkempt public toilet looms over a typical Valsan Koorma Kolleri sculpture—comprising a central step pyramid with a figure atop, in concert with surrounding smaller units—in the southeast corner of Subhash Park on Park Avenue Road, an apology for a sprawling public space.
A jumble of discarded iron grills and tangled wires clutters the spatial installation that Valsan wanted visitors to the park to unwind on.
Ill-maintained, a constituent unit of the installation is slanted precariously, the crack in its belly bloating by the day.
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By Mayor Tony Chammany’s own account, the Corporation is spending Rs. 6 crore to ‘modernise’ the park and the sculptures defining its contours are getting a facelift. The truth, however, is that there’s no redemption in sight for the priceless pieces of public art hatched in Kerala’s maiden international art camp jointly organised by the Kochi Corporation and Kerala Kalapeetom in 1990.
“Following up on an idea conceived by noted Chinese-Japanese sculptor Hiroshi Mikami, 14 renowned artists, half of them from overseas, got together at the park between December 1990 and January 1991 to carve out these outdoor sculptures,” recalls artist T. Kaladharan, a vital force behind the camp.
“Mikami wanted to promote the idea of stone-carving and invited fellow sculptors over. Then Mayor K.J. Sohan provided succour to the project, which produced some marvellous pieces of public art in granite, concrete, metal scrap and the like at the park. Excited, they were content with a paltry honorarium of Rs 3,000 each. It was a rude gesture to the artists when the Corporation squeezed in a leaking toilet amid the sculptures a few years ago,” he rues.
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Contrary to Mayor’s claim that the works have been restored under artistic supervision, Raghav Kaneria’s weather-beaten ‘Bull’ done using metallic junk from Cochin Shipyard is rusting. An iconic female nude by Sabari Roy Choudhury is broken beyond repair, denuded of concrete and the inner iron bars baring their ugliness. Growing through the deformed sculpture is a peepal tree, now looking very much a part of it.
“Saurav, himself a sculptor of renown and Sabari’s son, had volunteered to restore the work himself, but then the Corporation did not seem to be keen,” says Kaladharan.
The lotus pond in granite with fish in it done by Mikami himself is in a state of absolute disrepair.
“The work was an expression of gratitude to India for giving Japan its Buddhism. And, fish denote a journey sans borders,” says Sohan, now the Corporation’s town planning standing committee chairman.
The work, ‘flower blooms, flower wilts’, demonstrates his mastery in granite carving, says Kaladharan.
It’s a pity the masterpieces are let to wither away, he adds.
who coorganised the international art camp where the work was created. The artist has now volunteered to redesign the toilet and the sculptures himself . Photo :
Sabari Roy Choudhury's female nude at Subhash Park remains broken, with a peepal tree grown thorugh it. The public works of art, when they were made, were thought to give visitors a chance to interact with them, but the corporation has now closeted them in concrete columns.