CONTEMPORARY DISCURSIVE DILEMMAS AND READING THE PAST ART AND LIFE OF K. VENKATAPPA
1886- 1965) aft er almost half a century aft er his
demise, literally means reading, looking and
perceiving him from an altogether diff erent
era of visual cultural engagement. Arguably,
most artists who are already historicized
are available to us (only) posthumously. In
fact even those who were/are living-legends,
profusely written and discussed about during
their life time, have also been re-evaluated
posthumously, even aft er what seems to be an
unforgivable time gap.
KV lived like those painters who painted
when they were not documented-‘then-andthere’
i.e. before mechanical reproduction of
art. Ravi Varma, who passed away even before
the birth of Bengal Revivalism in art, has
been subject to‘re-evaluation’ much aft er the
essential demise of Tagore’s Bengal phenomena
at Kala Bhavana, as late as in 1990s. (a) Th e
development/evolution/construct of what we
presume to be a widened scholarship, through
cultural study of visuals over art historical
studies; and (b) Th e discovery of the newer
facts about the artist–are two main sources
to re-read an artist. However, this article fi nds
both the methodology problematic due to the
reason of their presumption about a fact-thenand-
there as the ‘actuals’. Th e ever-alteringtext
is absent from Indian art historiography
and archiving process. Venkatappa, seen aft er
fi ft y years aft er his demise, would not only
be an improvised artist–possibly owing to
point (b)–but also as an artist of a stronger
belief, owing to point (a)! Scholarships about
KV mentions his caste, economic source and
space as the ‘overall scholarship about him’;
and ‘concludes’ him more or less as eccentric/
individual genius.
While looking at KV’s creative output,
now, one realizes that the very apparatus-ofvision
engaged to do so, has metamorphosed.
How does/can one ‘watch’ something while
the very apparatus of ‘vision’ itself is in such
jeopardy? On the other hand, how can it
be watched when something is already a
frozen, offi cially museumised phenomena?
Are we, then, catering to a presumption
of a ‘permanent’ visuality (through KVs
biography) while understanding it from a
context wherein this very visualizing process
has been problematised, for, it also implies—
apart from other possible contradictory
positions-a male construct2.