The Origin of Gond Art — The Tensions of Discovery
The origin of Gond art captures the connection between identity and making that pervades indigenous crafts groups. In the absence of a money system, people make mostly everything they own. There is both a desire to push for exposure and also experiment with the art form at the same time. Whether we like it or not, external discovery affects the value of their art, which leads to livelihood. One of the artist villages I work closely with in Madhya Pradesh exemplifies this phenomena quite fittingly.
There is a long standing culture of body tattooing in this village, that has since translated first to geometric patterns on the walls, and now to intricately patterned animal shapes on paper. Half a decade ago, a prominent Delhi artist had somehow ended up in this village, spotted the talent of a young boy named Jangarh Singh Shyam, and took him as an apprentice back to Delhi. Because of the boy’s association with this super star artist, the value of Gond art sharply appreciated. The boy, who became a man, was pulled around the world for international exhibitions, which again appreciated the value of the art. When he was in his early 30’s, he was kept in Japan for an exhibition. It remains unclear what happened — some say he was not allowed his passport back until he completed his work, or that he was not particularly acquainted with the distant formalities or Japanese culture — but tragically, he ended up hanging himself while still in Japan. Even in death, though, was associated value — in a strange Van Gogh effect, the scarcity of his artwork after his death ended up appreciating the work even more.
Back home in the village, budding artists were inspired and influenced by Shyam’s success and also slowly gained recognition of their own. They moved away from the villages and into cities into thriving artistic careers. But if you go back to this home village today, almost all the villagers are now artists — a good 300 villagers who remain undiscovered and often impoverished, but who still seek to make art their main livelihood.
These are the artists we work with. Knowing this history, I constantly wrestle with the opportunity and perils that external discovery creates. In terms of what story to tell, what pervades my mind while working with tribal artists lies in the tension between tradition and modernity, and the thin line between discovery and exploitation.
This article on Shyam makes a contentious point: “Shyam’s death exposes an unsavoury aspect of exploitation of Indian folk and tribal artists by foreign agencies […] In his tragic death lie several unanswered questions about the feasibility of transporting art that is essentially bound to a certain way of life and sensibility into a culture which exploits it for commercial gratification.”
But what is exploitation? Assuming that this “certain way of life” is static and crystallized is to be stuck in a looking-glass. Gond art would not be what it is today without one boy’s entrance into the urban world. The dominant view is that these tribes should be left alone. But planetary urbanization is inevitable, and unless these small communities can strengthen themselves they will be taken advantage of. Even the most educated who leave the village, return. They simply aren’t able to compete with an oversupplied urban market that is caste discriminatory. There are ~400 artists back in Shyam’s village who are hoping to ride on the coattails of Shyam’s legacy but have no way to do so because of geographic isolation. The eagerness of the artists to get their work discovered is an early impetus for our business model. Yes the causes of Shyam’s death causes me trepidation. But the question is: How do we construct a fair conduit for discovery, and can we do so in a way without disturbing this “certain way of life?”
Roots Studio is changing the way that traditional art is distributed. We offer limited-edition art prints in partnership with traditional artisans from rural India. Follow our journey on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook!
