29 July 2019 01:13 am Views - 943
- How an artist is made is an equally important question
- Nucleus of an artist is formed within a period of great personal danger, anguish and turmoil
- How did a rural boy like Bandu become one of the most significant figures in our modern art sphere
Many have pondered the meaning of art down the centuries. How an artist is made is an equally important question. While there are universal socio-economic, political and other factors which pay key parts, the core chemistry of a successful artist must remain a mystery which cannot be explained neatly by the above-mentioned factors.
Bandu Manamperi is a multimedia artist who now occupies a significant space in the still microcosmic world of modern Sri Lankan art. He is a multimedia artist working primarily as painter and sculptor, but his most remarkable achievements may be in his work as a performance artist. In that sphere, he is one of the pioneering Lankan artists.
After the first-ever Sri Lankan performance art act presented by Dr G. R. Constantine in 1994, Bandu Manamperi and Janani Cooray followed suit, and the country’s artistic community and the general public were introduced to a new art form.
Today, Bandu Manamperi is the director of the Theertha Red Dot Artists’ Collective and Gallery based in Colombo, as well as co-director of the Colombo Performance Art Platform, which he co-founded with Dr Constantine.
Housed in a pleasing white-walled building at the end of a quiet, dead-end lane in Colombo 8, the Theertha Gallery has hosted a number of exhibitions from here and abroad, including India, Iran and Indonesia.
It is an integral part of the Colombo biennial, which is an international artists’ event, and its Colombo Performance Art Platform held once every two years, has become a significant watermark in the shaping of our consciousness towards a new art form and novel means of expression.
Those who think that ‘modern art’ in Sri Lanka is a happy hour for Colombo’s bohemian and elite circles need to examine the phenomenon more closely. The mid-20th-century pioneers of our modern art came mostly from the Westernised upper-middle class. By the 1980s, however, there was a significant demographic shift in this equation.
More often than not, the artists of the Theertha circle, both men and women, come from semi-urban or rural, middle and working-class backgrounds.
Many of them do not speak English. Bandu Manamperi is bilingual, but he is a very good example of the kind of artist who doesn’t fit easily into common wisdom and accepted theories of what makes an artist – especially a modern artist in a developing country.
This is because modern art tending towards abstract expression has its roots in the industrialized world, going back to the early twentieth century.
That it has a small but highly expressive following in the developing world, including parts which are still largely agricultural, simply means that modern art isn’t a convenient Western fad used by the disgruntled to challenge traditional ways of thinking.
"Nor were there any political radicals in the family. But Bandu found JVP politics attractive while in school. His involvement didn’t go beyond drawing posters for them, but he was among the thousands arrested and incarcerated during the bleak 1987-90 period"
Born in Bandaragama, 39 km from Colombo, Bandu went to the local school and still lives in what still is a close-knit small town.
Bandaragama and its environs are semi-urban and the rural mindset is not far away. Across the street, seen daily from his home, is a Buddhist temple. How did a rural boy like Bandu become one of the most significant figures in our modern art sphere, boldly challenging the status quo?
It’s not a spurious question; nor is it condescending, because his development defies conventional wisdom. His art education at school was conventional. His father was an astrologer. His mother did not want to select careers for him, as many parents do when their children can barely talk, but she had no notion of making him an artist, either. Nor was there any artistic tradition in the family except for an uncle who was good at drawing currency notes with watercolours as a hobby.
Nor were there any political radicals in the family. But Bandu found JVP politics attractive while in school. His involvement didn’t go beyond drawing posters for them, but he was among the thousands arrested and incarcerated during the bleak 1987-90 period.
“I was told by a survivor not to spill out names,” Bandu recalls. “All those who did so in the hope of living another day were killed.” Instead, he began crying and screaming nonsense whenever his interrogators worked on him.
“It was my first performance, and it was successful,” he recalls wryly. Tortures included being burnt with cigarettes, but he managed to outwit his interrogators.
The nucleus of an artist was formed thus within a period of great personal danger, anguish and turmoil.
But the final product took shape when Bandu entered the University of Aesthetic Studies in 1994. There, Dr Jagath Weerasinghe became his mentor and guru, but the path to graduation wasn’t entirely smooth.
His initial project and exhibit, titled ‘Instant Nirvana Pvt. Ltd’ was given zero marks by the panel of judges, while Dr Weerasinghe argued in his favour. The exhibit consisted of several small Buddha statues bought from a shop.
The judges were shocked by Bandu’s thesis, that any Buddha statue available for sale is a commodity or consumer item. He was an unconventional artist in the making in an institution which is still essentially traditional in its outlook.
Bandu graduated in 2001 as an artistic rebel looking for fellow travellers along a difficult path.
"The judges were shocked by Bandu’s thesis, that any Buddha statue available for sale is a commodity or consumer item"
Contact with a Caribbean-French performance artist in 2000 proved crucial in fashioning new ideas. The starting of Theertha in 2001 was another pivotal event which gave him focus. A week after getting married, Bandu exposed the gender humiliation Lankan brides are subjected to after getting married due to the ritual of virginity.
The first barrier to break was with his family members. The second was as a performance artiste with the general public, which he did with the elaborate, an ominously silent style which has become his hallmark when he mimicked a bride’s ordeal by walking around draped by blood-stained white cloth hanging about his body like remnants of a terrorist bombing.
This was followed by his ‘Barrel Man’ performance at the re-opening of the Jaffna Municipal Library, when he walked inside the library in bandages, carrying a barrel on his shoulders. The barrel, as well as the bandages, are both stark symbols of war. The artist carries the burdens of war on the shoulders of his wounded body.
Since then, he has evolved into a more abstract style where common objects, seemingly blown larger than life, become metaphors for other things – the clash of dream with reality, the incompatibility of expectation with achievement, and the confusion which comes out of looking for any meaning in life. His famous ‘fish’ performance at the 2015 Platform is an example when he walked in the streets in a suit pulling a huge fish behind him.
His performance at this year’s Platform was almost Surreal. In a room with lights switched off at night, lit by the eerie glow of two motorcycle headlamps, he bit off chunks from a piece of wood burnt to charcoal and ate some of the pieces. It was a gut-wrenching performance from a man who has been at the edge – of civilization, life and death, the thin line between light and dark, hope and blackout.
Artists have their politics like anyone else. But most good artists do not make that obvious in their art.
Bandu’s disillusionment with JVP politics increased after grappling with their ideology-driven, rather simplistic views on what art for public consumption should be.
Today, he’s independent of such politics but agitates for freedom of the individual from the tyranny of hidebound tradition. That is a good platform any artist who wants to true to his ideals.