I Want To Make Art An Experience

Hindustan Times, Chandigarh Live
Monday, 9th March 2009

Renowned Sculptor Avtarjeet Dhanjal, at a talk today, said he did not want to create objects of art but make his art an experience.

I have created installations that have been momentary, lasting from a few hours to one day to a few minutes so that my work does not become an object and is bought, sold or moved, “he said in a British accent”.

Chandigarh Lalit Kala Akademi had invited Dhanjal to give the talk at Government Museum Auditorium.

The U.K. based artist an ascetic at heart, has also been moving away from the idea of ownership. So he gave away his house to charity. Also, the moment people began agreeing to the money he asked for an assignment, he stopped taking them anymore.

“For me, realizations are more valuable than achievements.”

Dhanjal left India 40 years ago after spending his childhood in a Punjab village and his youth at Chandigarh’s Government College of Art. “But through my work I have wanted to feel those experiences again – of running over rooftops trying to find a blaring radio, or staring into a well, or being in a house without electricity, “ he said, “Art in West is an object, but not in India. So the value of my work was not in the objects but in the environment it created,” he asserted.

He explained with slides transforming a park into a work of art, making sand pyramids on a beach, or lighting up candles on a lake or putting candles on slate slabs, hanging a pitch black canvas in a Polish palace or simulating the limitless galaxy in a small room.

“A scholar reads and studies. But an artist feels the unwritten word. He works on intuition. So I make something inside me guide me. That is what the holy books tell you,” he informed.

But he added quickly” “And I’m still that man from the village. In that silence, you learn to connect to something within you, use your imagination. That is the core of my work. It is never really intellectual. I express it directly.

Shape Of An Idea

Chandigarh Newsline
Tuesday, 10th March 2009
By Parul

He creates concepts and not objects. His work is not separated from the environment, but is an intrinsic part of life, reflecting ideas, images, sensations and exploring deep emotions. “My work is a way to share my experiences with others,“ UK – based sculptor Avrarjeet Dhanjal shares the philosophy of his art and inspirations a lecture and slide show, Beyond the Object, organized by the Chandigarh Lalit Kala Akademi, Life’s a journey and Avtar is a traveller, a nomad, who feels the space and silence and presents an idea, but it in old buildings, parks, museums, beaches, with rock, sand, slate, wood, candles. His guide, something within him, which always tells him what to do…”Life has been generous with me. My learning began watching my father’s carpentry skills and the village craftsmen carving images, “ Avtar goes back in time, to the Arts College, his travels through Africa, Ethiopia, Zambia, the St. Martin’s Art School, galleries…Prose or poetry, most of his works begin with that, so that he can feel the spirit of the place… as he shows you a rock he has carved in a park, with rain water for the birds to bathe again and again… or his series using candles and the amazing play of light and darkness that it creates. “There was no electricity in our village and this is something from my childhood. When I carve and create, I hope people will take back a piece, thought or image in their heart and head, for I allow my true self to come out an d then the sensitivity guides me on. Imagination is the core of my works,” Avtar combines in himself the earthiness of the rural landscape, consciousness of India’s spiritual heritage and the intense search for a sense of being and belonging.

Constantly on the move, refusing commissioned jobs, it’s not logic but institution that takes his work beyond the apparent context, “I’m always looking for something to join my objects, you have to go beyond the usual needs and confined spaces. You need spare energy to be restless and it’s the process and not the result that’s important,” Avtar’s sculpture objects take various forms…

Stone Age

The Tribune
Tuesday, 10th March 2009
By Prabina Rashid

A nomad is no mad. The statement made by UK- based eminent sculpture Avtarjeet Dhanjal during the lecture organized by the Chandigarh Lalit Kala Akademi at the Government Museum and Art Gallery Sector-10, Chandigarh evoked a peel of laughter among the audience, but that’s precisely what it did. Nobody bought it. For a generation living in the materialistic world, nobody except for characters of Paulo Coelho books, give up everything to wander around and ‘live’ life. Or, unless the person is Dhanjal himself.

“Life has been generous to me, considering from where I began,” commented Dhanjal. Not because he has accumulated awe inspiring fame or wealthy possessions, but he has been lucky enough to travel around like a free bird.

“In fact, I want to give away my house to the institution so that I cut myself totally free from the materialistic world,” he elaborates. The institution in question is The International Institute of Visual Art, London, an institute he has been closely associated with. “It’s actually my need to give it away you see, to free my soul. They do not need it, “says Dhanjal with complete honesty. And the meaning he has been trying to convey through an hour long lecture and a slide show on his sculptures all around the world, comes out loud and clear- to be a creator, one has to go Beyond the Object- as also was the title of his talk.

The talk covered his entire journey in art, right from his growing up days at Dalla, near Ludhiana, where he started his career as a carpenter, to his enrollment in the Government College of Art – Chandigarh to his various destinations, from Nairobi as a faculty at Kenyatta University to St Martin School of Art in London as a student and finally to Telford in Shropshire.

It’s been more than 40 years he had left his country, his hometown, but the little boy of Dalla refused to part with him. So, a bit of his village is shown in most of his works like installation of his candle series, which he executed around 1985. Using candle in water or on slates germinated from the fact that there was no electricity in his village during his time making the impression of pitched dark was an integral part of him. Or, the one made with huge white stone with a big hole in it, which remained him of the well at his grandmother’s house. There are others like the Rhythm of Life in one of the beaches of Slovania, which he executed with five sand pyramids, or the one in the form of stepping stones in the ruins of Abbe or huge towering yet functional ones at London Park. Sometimes, his sculptures come with a poem or a few line of wisdom. And his drawing asking the big question: what was there before the universe?

“I try to make a social or political comment through my work, but I have nothing intellectual to say, I just express myself very directly. In fact, I am still that man from the village and I guess being true to myself has been my driving force,” he concludes.

Anything lined up for city Beautiful, we could’nt resist but ask the man who created quite a few for the city during the early years of his career. And comes the reply “Not really. There have been enough objects already maybe I can work at the idea level.” Beyond the object, indeed.