A rather disappointing feature about Men of Rajasthan has appeared in Time Out - Bangalore, and I am told the same article might soon appear in the magazine's Delhi edition. I feel forced to repeat the usual complaint..."I was quoted out of context!" Sadly, the printed article distorts a lot of what was said through the process of an e-interview conducted with the article's author, Jaideep Sen. Mr. Sen himself has expressed his dismay at the way his writings appeared in print, and has permitted the full and original interview to appear below.
JS: We wished to begin by addressing the form of “staged photography”, in itself, in asking you for your take on how this form has genuinely come into itself, as it were, to become a genuine offshoot, or branch, of art practice. Would you like to share with us, your ideas and thoughts, about how the form of “staged photography” perhaps needs to be revisited, re-analysed and reinterpreted in a contemporary context – especially, as a practice that has one foot in the trite, platitudinal consultations of the street-side photo studio kind, which have long been a part of Indian middle-class culture, and in light of the work of the likes of Nandini Valli Muthiah, Pushpamala, and Shadi Ghadirian, for instance? (Without necessarily embarking on a Barthes/Chris Pinney-like discourse) How much of a cultural, anthropological, and artistic reading would you draw towards “staged photography”, as a form that is indeed evolving to incorporate and highlight such elements as satire, artifice and even sophistry, which were in all likelihood unintended in say, illustrations of such a practice in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century?
WXW: In a certain sense all portrait photography was "staged' in the early years of photography for the simple reason that very long exposures were needed to make a photograph. Portrait photographers in the 19th century even used metal braces to help keep people's heads from moving during the long minutes needed to create a negative. The idea of candid shots and totally natural poses only evolved with the advancement of technology. But early photographers did wonders within the limitations of the staged tableau. Look at the work of Julia Margaret Cameron who worked in Britain during the late 1800s (she was actually born in Sri Lanka). In contemporary times many people have developed a bias against staged photography, but practitioners in the field of Fine Art have readily embraced it: from Cindy Sherman to Pushpamala N. and Sunil Gupta. For the most part it seems contemporary artists use staged photography for self-portraiture, parody, or ironical commentary.
A lot of these artists have quite strong political agendas and their work is largely a critique on such things as Orientalism, hegemony, and the "colonial gaze". They revisit the genre partially in order to deconstruct it and critique it. I'm aware of those issues, but my work is seldom directly political. I've done staged self-portraiture (of course, all self-portraiture is in some manner staged) but for the most part I am looking at "others", people who are in varying degrees removed from the culture of my birth. This separates my work from the work of artists such as Pushpamala and Ghadirian.
In the past I had received criticism of my sepia-toned India Poems body of work as it was seen as possessing an apparent "colonial gaze". Part of my rationale for using backdrops, sets, and posed models in this new series (which is called in its totality A Studio in Rajasthan) was that in doing so it sends a clear signal that this work is not meant as an actual documentation of Indian reality. Rather, it is one artist's eccentric and, if I say so myself, rather romanticized way of viewing. I'm not shy of the word "romantic", though having your work labelled romantic in the discourse of contemporary art can be a kiss of death. There are strong biases against a romantic vision.
JS: To be honest, we’re all for the quality of monochrome as an overarching scheme, when it comes to portraiture. But was there any other reason, based upon which, you might have decided to avoid colour altogether for Men of Rajasthan? Also, were you satisfied by the results of the printed reproductions – as in, was the slightly muted, almost blunted tone in the images entirely intentional?
WXW: I studied in schools that were very purist in their approach to old-fashioned black and white chemical-process photography. It was always stressed in these schools that making the print in the darkroom was fifty percent of the work. We were taught that real photographers made their own prints. These days all of that has changed. Very few fine arts photographers today actually make their own prints, and reliance upon digital printing services is the norm.
When I first established a studio in Udaipur I went ahead and built a chemical darkroom like I was accustomed to in the USA. But the complications of the desert environment and the lack of traditional darkroom supplies sort of forced me into the digital shift. I discovered a new love for digital black and white. But it seemed a very radical jump from my former work, and I wasn't sure if the people who follow me could accept that.
When Rajesh Soni entered into my life, with his family's long tradition of photo hand-colouring, it just opened up a whole new world. I discovered that with Rajesh's help my black and white digital prints could be given a more vintage feel. Even though we were adding colour these hand-painted prints seemed closer to the aesthetic feel of my earlier work.
Rajesh and I worked a long time together to get the soft, muted tones that we like. Of course seeing the actual photographic prints (which are quite large and more brilliant) is an entirely different experience than seeing them in the book. The book tones them down too much and I'm not totally happy with that. But I do think Men of Rajasthan fulfills the publisher's concept of producing an inexpensive and fun survey of one segment of the work.
JS: Could you tell us how you reasoned the inclusion of narratives essayed by models – such as Aslam, Azad, Chinnu and Krishna – in the book? On one hand, what were you hoping to execute in interspersing these images with real-life tales, as of the thela-wallahs, ghee-wallahs, or of Javed the guide, and of Vinod who survived polio as child and went on to become a bicycle repair man, or the farming couple of Mohun Lal and Dhapubai, to name a few? Then again, apart from the appended segment New Myths, was there a thought in literally placing some of these impressions in between the compositions that are true to reality, in the arrangement of the book?
WXW: A Studio in Rajasthan began as an attempt to fairly faithfully reproduce the look of vintage 19th century studio portraiture. But it very quickly evolved. It seems the work basically split into two diverging directions. One was a playful attempt to recreate reality within the studio setting. This can be seen in photographs such as Farm Boys or The Chara Thela Wallah. The other direction the series took delved more into the realm of fantasy, such as in Tribal Dreams and Night Prowl. The series New Myths couples fantasy (myth) with social commentary. By exploring issues of masculinity as expressed in terms of sexual vanity and aggression it is perhaps the most provocative and politicized body of work, and as such I have kept it as a separate series. Serindia Contemporary and I both felt that this work needed to be included in a book that centred upon Rajasthani men, but it seemed too divergent from the other photographs to be mingled between.
JS: We have encountered the word “playful” a few times in descriptions of your work. Is this an aspect that you are comfortable with? How much of your works are genuinely carefree and really meant to evoke mirth, and – please do excuse the big word – light-heartedness? At the risk of going all pedantic and academic, we’re almost certain that there is a serious side to a large part of Men of Rajasthan.
WXW: When people see my work as playful I am quite OK with it and I use that word myself. A photograph such as The Young Businessman has overt humour, but more generally there is, as you say, a feeling of light-heartedness. By nature I take life quite seriously and I am more prone to humour that has a dark side. Perhaps because of this I am attracted to people that manage to keep a kind of invincible joyousness and I find this in so many average Rajasthanis. They seem much better at keeping a smile in their hearts than we westerners do. Some people will claim that I have fallen into the trap of romanticizing "the happy poor", but I think happiness is found in subaltern realities far more often than people realize, and there is just as much of a trap in perceiving only "the miserable poor".
So in spite of the playfulness that lies on the surface of much of this work there are certainly some serious underlying issues. A lot of what I do examines how we approach and perceive the "other". One Italian collector of mine explained it very well. He said, "A person looks at one of these photographs and thinks they know what they are seeing. Then a second later they realize the photograph is not at all the reality they thought it was. And then they look again, and question their own perceptions and preconceptions." I think that sums up one aspect of the work in a very succinct manner. Another comment came from the London-based art critic Edward Lucie-Smith, who wrote that my work, when seen as a whole, became "an ambitious self-portrait" and a "sustained love letter to an ancient culture". There is truth in that analysis too...and of course both self-portraiture and sustained love letters imply a serious amount of seriousity!
JS: Would you like to comment on the decidedly male-oriented focus here? Was this a direct, inescapable outcome of Rajasthani society, as you witnessed it? How much of this aspect really played into your studio sessions from reality? Wouldn’t you have liked to perhaps play up the roles of Devia, clinging on to the barber Manoj on a scootie, or of Dhapubai? As a matter of fact, there aren’t too many children here either – barring, perhaps, the boy in On the Way. To think of it, Rajasthani culture does have a rather unsparing history of stunning, and even imperious women. Did you entirely miss them for the book?
WXW: For sure there needs to someday be a larger and more complete book that includes the women. The Studio in Rajasthan series not only includes many images of women, but also children and "group shots". Focusing entirely on the men was first and foremost an editorial decision that the rather bulky series could be pared down into a more easily grasped take on Rajasthani men. I initially fought the idea, but eventually realized it made sense. Males in Rajasthan occupy such a privileged position and are far more visible in the social sphere. Taking select images of the men, and coupling that with a few New Myths works and the essay by Amrita Gupta Singh, I think we've managed to create not only an entertaining but a perceptive and even daring volume.
JS: What was your reaction to the three lads landing up at your studio unannounced, for what then took shape as the image Village Boys? Were there other similar stories, such as of Vinod, almost secretly harbouring his aspirations of becoming a model?
WXW: The three boys who appeared at the studio door unannounced and ended by posing for Village Boys were a lot of fun largely because my usual assistants were not around and I had no help with interpretation. It really strained my "baby-talk Hindi" to get them to understand what the project was about and how I wanted them to pose. But the young man in Vinod at the Mirror is probably the more interesting story. Vinod did indeed seem to have aspirations to be a real model. Most of the people we photograph in the studio pose in the roles that they play in real life. In other words, a chai-wallah will play the part of a chai-wallah in the studio. Vinod worked as a bicycle repair man, sitting each day at the side of the road and mending punctured tires and broken gears. He had these long flowing locks and was really gorgeous in his face and his upper body. He himself seemed to realize this, and his vanity was quite apparent. So constructing a little fantasy and letting Vinod pose in front of a mirror seemed quite the thing to do. The poignant thing of course is that Vinod had been a victim of polio, his legs were like thin sticks and it was quite impossible for him to stand erect. A person sees one thing when they first view this photograph, and quite another after reading the accompanying story. The short anecdotes add a lot to this book.
JS: The snide wit is hard to miss in the take on the unnamed westerner cradling an open book in The Learners. But this image also leads us to think about the many newfound trades, and converted businessmen in Rajasthan, particularly in Pushkar, who have abandoned an older profession to practically pander to the tourists passing-through – not just as guides, like Javed, instead more like farmers turned coolies, or of former labourers gone the route of travelling entertainment, and such? Would this perhaps be a part of a follow-up project on the people of Rajasthan – to document the lost, converted and evolved professions of the people of this state?
WXW: You've hit upon something that is very bothering to me. Yes, it is rather painful to see what the tourism industry does to small locations such as Udaipur. There are groups of young men in Udaipur who at one time might have been learning their father's professions, but are instead waiting roadside playing the tourist tout and gigolo. The tourists play a huge role in this by indulging young men with gifts and even free trips. But the locals themselves are hardly innocent, as they have let greed lead them into these lives. There is exploitation on both sides and it is sometimes painful to watch. But to be fair, there is also a certain amount of positive cultural interchange. There is a nod to this in The Learners, snide wit notwithstanding.
One reason I selected Rajasthan as a base is that I had fallen in love with the tradition of crafts in the state. In spite of the corruptions that tourism has brought there are still tremendously talented craftsmen in Rajasthan. But I don't consider myself a documentary photographer, at least not in the usual sense, so doing a project of this sort is probably unlikely.
JS: The one facet of Rajasthani life that comes through distinctly in Men of Rajasthan is to do with the sense of pride, and self-regard – be it, in the lives of farming folk, or of cycle repair men, or of apparently rudderless youngsters. How aware were you of this singular, predominant trait of all Rajasthani men, when you first visited this part of India in 1993? Was Rajesh Soni, as a soft-spoken, mild-mannered individual as you have described him, almost an antithesis to the stereotype of the typically contemptuous and dominating man from Rajasthan?
WXW: 1993 was not only my first visit to Udaipur it was my first visit to India, so I was really clueless. I would say I did not begin to sink my teeth into Rajasthani society until my return to Rajasthan in 1999. For sure one of the first things I noticed was the handsomeness of the people and the men in particular. Like I say in the book, there is a very curious mixture of machismo and tenderness in Rajasthani men that I find nowhere else in the world. I'm not sure if Rajesh Soni is an exception. He too can be very cocky or "proudy" as they say here, but then there is also this soft and smiling and very open side to him as well. He would certainly never be "contemptuous". I really don't see that trait.
JS: We came across a particularly piquant question that you raised in a recent blog-post: “Are nationalistic identifiers in the arts needed at all?” In view of your experiences within and outside of India, as a case in point, would you like to elaborate on that thought, and some of the concerns that you have, along these lines?
WXW: One of the facts about becoming an expat is that one tends to feel rather homeless. Though I was born and lived much of my life in the USA I always had difficulty relating to it culturally and politically. People like to peg artists according to the nationality on their passports, but artists of all people tend to think in terms of universal human emotions and ideals. So I really have problems with groupings of artists by race or nationality.
One thing I did appreciate about the USA however was that it was a multi-racial society, and being conscious of racial diversity has become rather expected in modern America. Museums and galleries generally take care to be inclusive of racial minorities in their selection processes and scheduling. For the most part that doesn't happen in India. Galleries can be quite blunt in announcing that they only handle "Indian Art", with "Indian" being defined in strictly racial terms. Curators still think along the lines of creating exhibits themed around "Indian Photographers" rather than "Photographers in India". So of course people like me get left out of such shows. I'm sure this is a hangover from the need to establish a post-Independence Indian identity and with time this thinking will change. But it can be irritating, and the attitude extends to even foreign dealers of "Indian Art". For instance, I recently had a woman who worked for one of the big auction houses quite interested in my work, but when she discovered that I was not Indian she sort of gasped and said, "Oh! But I thought you were Indian!" Her face fell and she lost interest in my work almost immediately. So yes, both on a theoretical level and on a personal level I wish the nationalistic identifiers could be left behind.
