crafts and rafts

To start a new series of Jamini with a topic like “Crafts” will no doubt strike some as a peculiar decision. When we think of crafts, we think of a medium that is closely linked to tradition, embedded in manual work and far from cutting edge contemporary art. This indigenous art form stands in stark contrast to Bangladesh’s contemporary art scene which is discovering new concepts and experimenting with new modes of expression. But, it is precisely this act of looking back at old traditions with a new gaze that can lead us to a better understanding of how not to go backward but ahead.
In order to illustrate this point, we turn to two concepts expressed by two great contemporary artists. The first is by the Italian artist Mario Merz who is regarded as one of the founding fathers of the “Arte Povera” movement. The second is by British sculptor Tony Cragg. Merz became known for having used the numbers of the Fibonacci series in many of his works. The Fibonacci progression is generally used in science to explain the growth of various categories of natural phenomena. It proposes that each number in the series is the sum of the two numbers that precede it: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55 and so on. It is a progression that Mario Merz considers applicable to the history of art as well.
Any contemporary artist cannot progress beyond a certain point without being aware of past artistic experiences. And the art of the past involves manual work and craftsmanship. The capacity of utilizing a technique, even if it is not used in every work produced, gives the artist an additional tool to use and a privileged point of view. Technique is therefore a tool that allows an artist to look further, as is evident in these lines from Tony Cragg: “When I was a student, somebody told me of a photograph he had seen of a group of Eskimos standing in a close circle, throwing a man high in the air to enable him to see more of their surroundings. I never had the opportunity to verify this as fact, but given an Arctic terrain and its lack of trees, I accepted it, and it impressed me greatly. It has led me to consider the importance of a vantage point, and other techniques for seeing more.”
Handcrafted objects and the manual skill that created them represent rafts, where we can rest during those moments of indecision, doubt and concentration that precede creation. They provide respite from the sea of mediocrity. To borrow from sentences that Tony Cragg uses in another of his writings: “Go into a museum, even a mediocre museum showing art, and you will automatically be confronted with a whole category of objects that are all, every single one – because of the concentration and the commitments of the individuals that have stood behind them and made them – fighting against mediocrity, a fight for not converting the whole material world into dumb things.”
Like it or not, Jamini is committed to combating mediocrity, standing firmly like a raft in the middle of a storm.

To start a new series of Jamini with a topic like “Crafts” will no doubt strike some as a peculiar decision. When we think of crafts, we think of a medium that is closely linked to tradition, embedded in manual work and far from cutting edge contemporary art. This indigenous art form stands in stark…