The Anonymous
Enjoying art for art�s sake
by Hasanul Banna Joy
Many believe that the art market has been influenced by the style or signature of an artist. It is true in many cases that buyers and art connoisseurs start to value an artwork only by the name scribbled on it. As the art industry is dominated by the name and fame of renowned artists, many upcoming talents need to struggle a lot to get their work noticed.
Thinking of the present state of the art world, Kalakendra last month arranged an exceptional painting show, titled The Anonymous.
The art centre has brought together works by 35 well-known and young artists under one roof at its gallery in Mohammadpur.
The exhibition is an experimental project of Kalakendra. Its primary concept is to keep away from the fame of artists or art works and enjoy the real visual aesthetics only.
Speaking to The Independent, the curator of the exhibition, Wakilur Rahman, said: Art lovers are always visiting exhibitions by famous artists. This is a negative aspect for young and promising artists. But there are a lot of young artists in the art scene now who are improving themselves through their dexterity and creativity. They are sometimes better than professional artists. We wanted to see the senior and junior artists on the same platform, with their names concealed. It was challenging for the artists to put up their work for sale, instead of their name. In fact, it was our purpose to present anonymous artworks by the artists to see how the visitors, critics and art collectors respond to them, without being prejudiced by a famous name.
Such shows are arranged in Europe on a regular basis. We got the idea from them, he added.
Kalakendra selected nearly 100 active artists from Bangladesh and invited them to participate in the exhibition. The participants were invited to submit a paper based (within 20 x15in size) work in any medium _ without their signatures. Eventually, 35 famous and less-known artists sent in their works.
We invited selected artists to take on this challenge and asked them to send one of their deserving works to participate in this exhibition. It was a new space for unprejudiced viewing, judging and buying of art, looking past the anonymity of the artists identities, said Wakilur.
The concept of the experimental exhibition was not to display an artists name or medium. The show rather invited viewers to guess the artist behind the work. That made it more interesting, as well as confusing, to the viewers who were left to enjoy, judge or evaluate the anonymous works only visually. Thus, a visitor or collector could completely judge a work of art on its own merit, without prior knowledge of its creator. All the paintings on display were priced at Tk 30,000 each. So, it was a great opportunity for art connoisseurs to get a masterpiece at a very low price.
The artists identity would be revealed after the sale, Wakilur explained.
However, he would not disclose how many pieces have been sold, only saying that there have been several queries from prospective buyers.
The paintings are done in different mediums, like acrylic paint, pen drawings, woodcut prints etc. Artists were not given any themes so they had the privilege to do what they wanted from their own creative minds.
The month-long will end tomorrow (Oct 10).
So, spare a moment to enjoy art for arts sake. And try to guess the names of the artists!
