Seven decades of Sakti Burman

What do you get when you mix mythical fantasy and rich colours from Bengal with French style? The body work of octogenarian painter-lithographer Sakti Burman is the first thing that comes to mind given its extraordinary position at the confluence of French, European and Indian cultures. And yet Burman's work is all that and much more. The rich diversity of his varied interests in forms and media will be showcased in a special exhibition In the Presence of Another Sky: Sakti Burman, A Retrospective which opens at Mumbai's National Gallery of Modern Art this week. The exhibition is a collaboration between NGMA, the Union Ministry of Culture and Art Musings.
This survey of the artist's work over nearly six decades, curated by poet, art critic, cultural theorist Ranjit Hoskote situates Burman's practice in its historical contexts as much as within an evolving Indian modern as within the European lineage of the modern.

Hoskote's curatorial reading emphasises Burman's affinities with a spectrum of artistic reference points, ranging from Pompeii murals to Dubuffet to illuminated manuscripts and miniatures. "The exhibition will map Burman's practice across the diverse artistic engagements that have characterised his journey: this includes his memorable contributions to engraving, the art of the book, drawing, sculpture and painting in various media. The retrospective will also celebrate the role of travel, of encounters with varied cultures, in the shaping of Burman's art and world-view. At the same time, the exhibition will attend to the historical events that have left their imprint on the artist's consciousness: the plural legacies of the School of Paris, World War II, the Partition and Independence, the Cold War, globalisation, and the post-globalisation world of simultaneously expanded and embattled possibilities," explains Hoskote.

The curator is in the thick of installing the art work at the gallery. "The final touches could go on till just before we open as one plays around with the possibilities of the space," he laughs, reminiscing his first interaction with Burman. "I'd barely been writing on art for a year when I first came upon Sakti's works in 1989. It's been three decades of knowing him and his works and still I can always find newer nuances and layers that I hadn't noticed before," he points out. He should know. After all he has now spent a year and half curating Burman's works for the retrospective.

Hoskote would be the go-to man considering he has curated retrospectives of Jehangir Sabavala and Atul Dodia's works in the past to much acclaim."I'm looking at Burman's work across a nearly 70-year period. The earliest works in the retrospective are drawings he made as a 15-year-old student in 1950; the most recent works are paintings he's made during the last year. Also included are his works in an expanded practice across media — including paintings, drawings, lithographs, book illustrations and textile design," he says. "I want art lovers, most who only know of his paintings, to experience Sakti Burman in totality. Because his lithography and textile design are equally rich and moving."

Hoskote travelled to France to spend a week with Burman who was conferred the Knight of Legion of Honour by the French government last year. "Though I am familiar with him and his work, it's amazing how being at his studio opened my eyes to new details. Sometimes the artist himself, because he is so close to the subject, takes for granted what could otherwise be a specialised detail to celebrate," he pointed out.

The retrospective will not be arranged chronologically. "I have divided his work into eight chapters dealing with different facets of Sakti's imagination. I felt this would do justice to his work of seven decades."

Burman, who was born and raised in undivided Bengal (now Bangladesh), has lived in France for nearly 50 years with his French painter wife Miatei Delteil. The couple have predominantly exhibited in India; their daughter Maya Burman is also an acclaimed artiste.

When asked if there is a favourite among the works, Hoskote admits it is difficult to choose one. Pressed to make a choice, he gives in. "The lithographs accompanying the translations of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore's work by Nobel laureate Andre Paul Guillaume Gide will always remain my favourite."

The maestro Burman too expressed pleasure about the upcoming exhibition. "It's an honour and privilege to be showing my works at the NGMA. I will be seeing some of these works after several years of them leaving my studio as a lot of the collectors have loaned their works for display. It will be interesting to see the entire graph of my artistic journey," and added, "I am deeply appreciative of the unstinting support that Art Musings and Ranjit (Hoskote) have given to this project." Hoskote adds: "In the poet Walt Whitman's memorable phrase, invented to describe an individual who inherits diverse histories and temperaments while extending himself imaginatively in plural directions, Burman 'contains multitudes'. In their elegant fusion of time horizons, Burman's works remind us that the global contemporary is, above all, a time and place of complex allegiances. We are all entangled in multiple definitions of self, linked by heredity, affinity and choice to various sources of cultural meaning. In such a situation, the artist cannot be pinned down to a specific, narrowly regional definition of selfhood. The artist's imagination is a receiving and transmitting station, and signals come to it from every quarter; the artist's project is to sift through these, in order to process the code into fresh and ever-renewed manifestations of his understanding of his life-world."

Several outreach programmes have been planned during the 40-day exhibition, including walks with the curator, a poetry reading, a panel discussion and a book release.

(In the Presence of Another Sky: Sakti Burman, A Retrospective will open on October 17th and continue till November 26th at the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai)