Jamini: An International Arts Quarterly

Publisher Abul Khair; editor Luva N. Choudhury; executive editor Ziaul Karim; Layout design by Shamim Chowdhury.Volumes reviewed: February 2005 (Popular Art) Tk. 300; Vol. 2, Number 3, 2005, Tk. 300.

I personally fell in love with it at first sight. Here I was holding something in my hand that was in a class by itself from every point of view. Other important magazines that dealt with art valorized them to an extent where it actually did not matter whether the books--or in most cases magazines perpetually failing to meet publication deadlines--attracted potential readers or not. They were shabbily produced with a lot of printing errors; the quality of reproductions of photographs or paintings gave birth to ideas that were quite contrary to what was probably intended -- or did the editors even care a fig! The interest of the general readership was supposed to be 'developed' with the help of erudite ramblings-- excuse me-- which in most cases were second-hand references to oracles pronounced by a dead white male-- that usually did not mean anything at all in our everyday context.

Jamini has changed that idea-- here for the first time we see due importance given to the production that comments on the love for artistic expressions and making them reach out to a large group of uninterested but potential readership. The reproductions are of a quality that takes the readers to an intimate level of communication with ideas that the artist wanted to convey through combinations of colours and textures--they are not just a waste of space that fail to connect, to provoke. It is evident that beyond all other motives that one could think of, a basic sense of respect for the readership works behind the designing of such a production.

Jamini is important for another aspect. Within its two covers is a meeting place, a salon where a broad range of people thinking seriously about art meet from all over this subcontinent and beyond. We are introduced to people commenting on the world of artistic manifestations throbbing around us without encountering a language that alienates the readers with unnecessary complexities--largely the end-product of academic high-browness--but instigates them with subtle references from Bakhtin (as in Johm Thieme's 'Carnival, calypso and steel band'). The idea behind this is suggestive of an intellectually attractive interdisciplinary approach that the reader might ponder upon at leisure. That too with an ease which makes him/her move into Zainul Abedin and Eduardo Paolozzi and African ballet and the relations between colonialism, famine and the politics of the 'black body' as against classical ballet. Both these issues of Jamini are anthologies no doubt, but I would more readily call them anthologies of thoughts and communicative methods (in terms of analytic style and artistic syntax) that Syed Manzoorul Islam and Quddas Mirza and Kaisar Haq develop as distinct from Ziaul Karim and Angus Calder and MeeAe Lee. I am in no way ready to call them two critical camps within Jamini, or to be a bit more restrained, two different critical orientations. Let's rather call them supportive analytical methods within whose dialectic the reader is afforded breathing spaces which enhance the meanings and mysticisms shrouding a Manu Parekh or the subdued hues of H.A. Karunarathne. It is a space for story-tellers like Ella Datta building their narratives on mythical colours of Ganesh Pyne with a link that almost automatically relates to the hand-coloured aquatints (Mahboob Alam's 'European artists in Bengal') and Ravi Verma (Gayatri Sinha's 'The effect of Indian popular art on mainstream art) which is an integral part of our understanding of Shambhu Acharya's re-orientating the pat style from the past.

We Bangalis with our 'claim' of cultural superiority--which for some rather strange reason is currently being transformed into a 'demand'--could hardly ever (heaven forbid!) think of Nepal as a source for anything else other than sherpas or 'Bahadurs' guarding our premises. In this respect Jamini introduces a world that we have never really looked at. We are being forced to look at ourselves from perspectives that do not really let us remain complacent with our Quamrul Hassans and Safiuddins, who were supposed to remain as museum pieces and collectors items. Jamini places them with Lee Ufan and Kwackinsik, to be seen with references to the experiences of Zubeida Agha, with Bhabesh Sanyal. It is a multi-layered visual experience that the reader is made to face.

I also found the issue on popular art followed by contemporary masters well thought out. For someone like me who started off with the February 2005 issue, it was a bonus to get my bearings straight with an initiation into the world of Zainul Abedin that then moved from graffiti to art on wheels--it was like having a firsthand experience of knowing which windows to open with Ranjit Das and Kalidas Karmakar so that I could move on to the voices of resistance echoing from Chetana and Brick Lane. That is what prepared me to enter the world of Shakir Ali, which depicts the apparent composure of Still life with bottles and an anger that is evident in Beggar woman. But the anger really started to seep into my consciousness reading about the production of the play 'Mephisto' by Suman Mukhopadhya (in Sudhanva Deshpande's 'Performing Fascism, Resisting Fascism') and Ghada Mohamed Amer and Rolf Harris and the graffiti of a little girl in a gas mask by Banksy.

Reviewers must express reservations at some point or the other--let me choose the concluding lines for such an inglorious task. Could there possibly be a space within the book that could include readers' comments and 'requests'? It is certainly evident that Jamini has set a very high standard and if there are 'compelling' requests it would only amount to more sleepless nights for the editors. I wish them all the best of luck.

Amitava Kumar teaches at Patshala, Drik Picture Gallery.