{"id":2601,"date":"2012-03-17T15:02:52","date_gmt":"2012-03-17T15:02:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.tehelka.com\/?p=2601"},"modified":"2012-03-17T15:02:52","modified_gmt":"2012-03-17T15:02:52","slug":"in-art-it-is-conventional-to-be-anti-conventional","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/in-art-it-is-conventional-to-be-anti-conventional\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018In art, it is conventional to be anti-conventional\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

WHO\u00a0<\/strong>Bengaluru-based Subbaiah creates in many media, from sculpture to text, audio, video, electronics and informatics. He got his Master of Fine Arts (Sculpture) from Royal College of Art, London. He has exhibited at Saffronart and Bose Pacia, New York, Fort Vuren, The Netherlands, The Japan Foundation Forum, Tokyo, Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai, and Vadehra Gallery, New Delhi.<\/em>
\n

\"Kiran<\/a>
Kiran Subbaiah, 41, Artist, Photo: Satish Badiger<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nWhat is the one incident that changed or formed your artistic vision?<\/strong>
\nThere is no one great incident that has formed my vision. There have been little things over time. I think I\u2019m still waiting for that big vision to strike. After that happens, I\u2019ll stop making art. I\u2019m waiting to be enlightened.
\nAs an artist, do you subscribe to societal notions of sex and love?<\/strong>
\nI think this question is neither this way nor that way. Societal norms are something that have survived and evolved over many years, so all of them aren\u2019t necessarily bad. One has to negotiate with them. In art, it has become a convention to be anti-conventional. That is a problem.
\nWhat is the one thought or feeling you have never been able to translate into art?
\n<\/em><\/strong>I don\u2019t think I strictly translate ideas into art. It is not necessary that I start out with a specific idea. Many times, while I have been playing around with materials, something has struck me. Sometimes I work to find meaning. That is when I become the medium rather than the author of ideas.
\nWhat\u2019s been your greatest moment of distress or exhilaration?<\/strong>
\nDistress? I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve had such a moment that would cause a mental breakdown. I was distressed when my girlfriend left me. Exhilaration was the opposite of that.
\n
\"If<\/a>
If the shoe fits: Sleepwalker Daydream by Kiran Subbaiah<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nBiggest influence\/mentor?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019d say these two artists who are not very well known; Robert Filliou and George Brecht.
\nWhy do you think art need not serve any purpose?<\/strong>
\nWhen I say purpose I mean it in a functional and utilitarian sense. Most people see art as entertainment, a way of deriving pleasure. It\u2019s not like I\u2019m building a bridge here. So if I make a mistake, there is no great harm in that. It\u2019s just bad art.
\nAradhna Wal is a Trainee, Features with Tehelka.\u00a0<\/em>
\naradhna@tehelka.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WHO Bengaluru-based Subbaiah creates in many media, from sculpture to text, audio, video, electronics and informatics. He got his Master of Fine Arts (Sculpture) from Royal College of Art, London. He has exhibited at Saffronart and Bose Pacia, New York, Fort Vuren, The Netherlands, The Japan Foundation Forum, Tokyo, Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai, and Vadehra Gallery, New Delhi.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21],"tags":[7126,7127,7128,7129,7130,7131],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2601"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/73"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2601\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}