Ved Prakash Bhardwaj
Jogen Chowdhury is a senior and important artist of our times. Jogen Chaudhurys name is included among the artists who contributed the most in giving an ideological basis to contemporary art. A retrospective exhibition of his art journey of over 6 decades opened on 8 March 2023 at Bikaner House, Delhi, organized by the Art Exposure Gallery, Kolkata. The curators of this exhibition are Jesal Thackar and Shoumik Nandy Majumdar. This is such an exhibition only after seeing it we can get acquainted with the world of a great artist like Jogen Chowdhury. Along with realistic human depiction, how his art has reached its present form through abstract paintings, can be understood from this exhibition. The suffering of human, his anomalous social position, and his life amidst systemic conflicts is the essence of Jogen Chowdharys art. About 350 paintings and drawings are on display in the exhibition, many of which are being seen by most people for the first time. Many art collectors present at the opening of the exhibition were also heard complaining about why the works were not shown to them earlier.
Born in 1939 in Faridpur, Bengal, Jogen Chowdhury studied at the Government College of Art and Crafts, Kolkata, from 1955-60, followed by a stint at L'Ecole Nationale Superior des Beax-Arts, Paris, in 1965-57 on a French Government Scholarship. Afterward, he spent five months in London. He returned to India in early 1968. He was appointed as a textile designer on the Handloom Board in Chennai. In 1970, he joined the Calcutta Painters Group. His first collection of poems Hridoy Train Beje Othey was also published in the same year.
He quit his job at the Madras Handloom Board in 1972 to join the Art Gallery of Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi as a Curator. Due to this new job, he moved to New Delhi. He founded the Gallery 26 and Artists' Forum in New Delhi in 1975 along with some leading painters of New Delhi. In 1986, Jogen represented India in the 'Festival of Art' in Baghdad.
In 1987, Jogen Chowdhury joined Kala Bhavan, Santiniketan as a professor of painting. Besides his numerous paintings and exhibitions, he has written extensively on contemporary art. He was also appointed as Judge in several exhibitions.
His recent solo exhibitions include 'A Calligraphy of Touch and Gaze', presented by Kalakriti Art Gallery at ICIA, Mumbai, in 2008; and Abahoman: Flowing Life at Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, in 2007. Chowdhury has also had solo exhibitions at Gajah Gallery, Singapore; Gallerie Foundation for Indian Artists, Amsterdam; and the Fine Art Resource, Berlin.
Dramatic, uninterrupted strokes and lines are merged to form and grip human figures in the works of Jogen Chowdhury. He is known for his honest portrayal of humans in unaccepted social conditions and their pain, an innate part of human existence. Although prolific in various mediums, such as ink and pastel, watercolor, oil, and pen, the bulk of Jogen Chowdhurys artworks feature unbroken, meandering lines in ink and pastel. The distorted human figures in his artworks stand out in overpowering, unfaltering lines across the canvas, giving him the label master of unbroken lines.
Jogen Chowdhury's hallmark is the elaboration of unusual meanings out of ordinary shapes. He uses local references in his art but in the final conclusion of the composition, it becomes a narrative of the universal condition of man. Epoch consciousness is an essential element of his creative world that separates him from other artists. While composing with a time reference, he gives a global basis to the composition. Early in his art, the influence of the Bengal School is visible, but his later works create a global atmosphere while maintaining a local identity.
Jogen Chowdhury expresses his culture as well as the social conditions of his time in his art. Sometimes, there is also a sense of sarcasm indirectly in his work. In the words of Shakti Burman, Jogen's work is simple but beautiful. This applies to his drawings which have a simplicity of line which is beautiful. The distortion in his art expresses the anomalies of our times.
In the beginning, Jogen Da did a lot of figurative work. In that period, human figures are simple in painting as well as in drawing, but in them, we get a glimpse of the future of Jogen Chowdhury. The densest moments of human suffering appear in them. His experiences of the Partition of Bengal in the early period can be seen in these paintings.
Initially, Jogen was associated with the Communist Party, but he was not directly involved in politics. Connecting with the condition of the common man at the level of sensitivity brought him closer to the communist movement. This association is visible in the work of many Bengali artists who were his contemporaries, but for Jogen, ideology and social commitment remained at the level of art, separate from politics. The result was that he was more conscious and experimental about form. His experimentation with form can be clearly seen in the gradual change in his art.
To understand Jogen Chowdhury's art, you must first understand those dimensions of our society which have hidden layers of inequality, violence, and injustice. As a socially conscious painter, Jogen sees those layers and expresses them in his paintings in a way that is not limited to any one context. Jogen's art is not free of context. He also says that I keep an eye on the social and political conditions of the country and the world along with the people around me. In fact, keeping this view also includes the analysis of those situations, the final form of which we can see in Jogen's paintings. Jogen's art demands thought as well as viewing. If you leave his paintings and drawings only at the level of a visual experience, then believe me, you will never reach the real meaning of his art. The more beautiful his art looks at the level of invisibility, the more disturbing it is at the conceptual level. Just as poetry contains multiple meanings, Jogen's work also contains multiple dimensions of meaning. For example, we can take one of his paintings in which a man is seen cutting a woman's chest and abdomen with a knife. This picture is not limited to the violence of men against women. A fetus is visible in the womb of a woman in the picture. Now if this picture is seen in symbols and other meanings apart from just action, then it also indicates female feticide, it also indicates future murder, and it also expresses the suicidal violence of man against the earth. Many such references go on to add to this picture. And this happens not with many of Jogen's paintings, but with most of them. Jogen Chowdhury has been identified as a figurative artist but it is not that he has not created abstract paintings. This exhibition includes many of his abstract paintings and drawings. The force of the brush strokes in a similar large painting reveals the impulse of a sensitive artist amidst the socio-political conditions of the time. Many such pictures and drawings are in this exhibition. By the way, the presence of abstract structures can also be seen in his figurative works. The concreteness which appears as a shape on the surface turns into abstraction at the level of emotion and thought.
A single line is mysterious and when it establishes a relationship with other lines and gives birth to a form, the same mystery becomes deeper. A shape does not allow the analogy to remain mysterious, but Jogen turns this analogy into a mystery. The human figure emerging on the canvas transforms this analogical image into a mystery with its gesture. In this, the artist takes the symbolic marking planted in the original shape away from the meaning of the surface to the world of meanings that are hidden in some mystery layers. The viewer can access these mysteries through his own consciousness and experience. In this way, Jogen raises the possibility of the active participation of the viewer in his art. In a way, he demands participation from the viewer in his art. You can't just look at his paintings as a simple visual descriptions, and if you do, you're sure to miss their real meaning. Jogen's art does not expect a viewer to merely be seen but solicits thought. That's why the art value of his paintings is higher than the market value of the artwork.
Initially, the forms in his paintings were more simple which later changed due to distortion. This change gave more effective expression to his social sensibilities. His passion for poetry became his assistant in this. The poetry of Jivananand Das impressed him more. This gave him a more transparent and realistic view of society and time.
The style of the cross-hatch gave a new dimension to his art. This helped him to more effectively express the true state of man with his mood. In his art, he later gave more importance to lines instead of colors. Apart from the works of the crosshatch, which are his pastel, charcoal, etc. drawings, lines are the main ones.
This exhibition includes his own portraits. Apart from this, there are many other personal pictures in which the expression of emotions is the main. The reclining figure in an old painting shows that humans doubled over by suffering began to be expressed in his art from the very beginning. He also says that I keep an eye on my surroundings as well as the social and political situations of the country and the world. That's why in his art we get an indication of the activities happening not only around us but also in distant countries. He does not show public events directly. He simply creates something in a picture that reminds us of several events at once. The status of women in society and the violence against them cannot be targeted in many of his paintings.
Many of his sketchbooks have been displayed in this exhibition. Looking at these sketchbooks, one can understand his process of producing a painting or drawing. One can understand from these sketchbooks how many sketches one goes through before a painting is made.
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