Delhi’s galleries and visual art spaces

A chance social media comment by a culture impresario about the fantabulous facilities available in the famed London left bank set off a train of thought in my mind. Since it was propounded as things “foreign” offering the best culture facilities situation followed by the usual lament as to why something like this is not possible in India. I think the opposite is true at least in the context of Delhi. Post Independence we have created many more proscenium stages than we actually use.

I did a quick mental tour of the Mandi House area and counted the number of auditoriums, galleries, lecture halls and seminar spaces felt rather good — all the seven radial roads from the Mandi House roundabout have at least a one auditorium but most have more and art galleries. It can give the London’s left bank a run for its money!

The point I am trying to make is that even within this one kilometre radius are a plethora of beautiful spaces which along with their open lawns make for some fabulous performance and visual art spaces, so it is not as if Delhi is lagging behind in demarking cultural arenas.

What is needed is a facelift to improve some of the entrances and make them more accessible for people with special needs with lifts and ramps and the washrooms of some of them too need regular upkeep. The facilities for the artistes backstage, the green rooms, the stagecraft, lights need to be refreshed and refurbished accordingly. Organisations that own these spaces need to devise programmes to sell the spaces to make them viable and worth the while to revamp them. There is an acute need for spaces and it will end the monopoly on a few places.

In addition to this every corporate giant, any school or college worth its name, public sector organisation, government offices, embassies, cultural bodies all have large seminar halls, auditoriums, conference rooms that have the potential of turning into art spaces even as part of their CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) initiatives. The point is if they decide to make it viable, they can generate enough revenue from these spaces to make the expense on them worthwhile and not used sparingly, leading to them falling into disrepair. Even local barat ghars and community halls can be used for rehearsals by performing artistes.

Some of the important culture festivals in Europe are a sight fit for the Gods where practically every conceivable and inconceivable area is turned into performance space and art space during the annual cultural festivals from barns, quarries, churches, lawns, large homes and community halls despite the intrinsic shortage of space. The art installations and performances are designed accordingly and the spaces lend a special and unique charm to the art presented.

We in India have a tradition of art-in-the-round as in dance, music, dance-theatre as our traditional forms are best described, where audiences encircle the performer to experience the art be it temples or tents in paddy fields of Kerala for Kathakali performances.

But like all things traditional where everything is such an intrinsic part of life that it manages to flow without ruffling the water on the surface. But that doesn’t mean it is non-existent.

Back to Mandi House, let us begin with the highest count on Copernicus Marg: The Kaustabh of the Lalit Kala Akademi is an acoustically sound, small intimate space perfect for talks, lectures, presentations. The same complex has two performance spaces, Meghdoot I and II, one of which is perfect for balmy evening performances. The best part is that these auditoriums were designed by performers themselves and are perfectly nuanced about usage — like an operation theatre designed by a surgeon as opposed to an architect.

Of course the Lalit Kala Akademi’s nine art galleries are easily the best in the country except the lift that couldn’t be installed thanks to nuisance created by some Leftists’ jhoolawala brigade in the previous regime. Hopefully they will do something about it this time. In the same complex is the Sahitya Akademi’s hall meant essentially for lectures and book launches. Next door is the Shri Ram Bharatiyia Kala Kendra that has an intimate art gallery and back lawns that frequently host the ballets in the sharad navratras when the weather is perfect for it.

Next door is the largish Kamani auditorium that is very good space in terms of the sheer numbers it can seat. Of course it overflows when Birju Maharaj performs there but that is a comment on Maharaj’s popularity rather than the auditorium’s size! Right next to it is the Little Theatre Group auditorium, simply perfect for plays.

The next road Barakhamba, has Sapru House (now gone into disrepair) that was the stage for many a concert in the 60s and 70s. But the Ficci auditorium right on the circle is fabulous but its entry points could have been better and more intelligently designed to at least “set the stage” — sorry for the corny pun! The other end of the Barakhamba has spaces for visual and performance in the two cultural centres of Britain and United States of America with Max Mueller Bhavan thrown in for good measure.

Tansen Marg has three glorious auditoriums — two in Triveni Kala Sangam, one indoor and another open air. The sizes of both are so perfect for small shows and so are the art galleries big enough for a solo and a small format group show. On the opposite side of the road the Ficci has its own auditorium that is nice and plush and lends itself well to seminars and lecture.

The Safdar Hashmi Marg has the Shri Ram Centre that is so well designed acoustically for theatre and has memories of some great shows embedded in its DNA. Though they do need to draw the bats out. The next radial road, Sikandra Road, has the Himachal Bhavan space, not very intelligently designed but well it is there. The next road boasts of the fabulous Abhimanch under the aegis of the National School of Drama and is perhaps the most well-designed auditorium in the Mandi House area — its setting, acoustics, approach, seating et al is just so right.

More about the other spaces outside the charmed circle of Mandi House next week

Dr Alka Raghuvanshi is an art writer, curator and artist and can be contacted on alkaraghuvanshi@yahoo.com Alka Raghuvanshi www.alkaraghuvanshi.com http://alkaart.blogspot.com