[In January, under the
auspices of the first organized street art festival in Delhi, known as St.Art,
60 artists from all over the world have convened here for exhibitions,
workshops, film screenings, a “graffiti-jam” and, most important, the
transformation of dozens of the city’s cement walls into works of art. In
Shahpur Jat, an urban village in south Delhi, artists from the festival have
painted or plan to paint at least eight walls.]
By Max Bearak
NEW DELHI — While looking out from a balcony in one of Delhi’s many urban
villages – former villages that were swallowed up by the ever-expanding capital
— more often than not, one is confronted by a boring, gray wall – the bare side
of another building.For street artists,
these walls, and these urban villages, offer an ideal combination of expansive
canvases for their work and vibrant communities with whom they can share the
joy and wonder of their art.
In January, under the
auspices of the first organized street art festival in Delhi, known as St.Art,
60 artists from all over the world have convened here for exhibitions,
workshops, film screenings, a “graffiti-jam” and, most important, the
transformation of dozens of the city’s cement walls into works of art. In
Shahpur Jat, an urban village in south Delhi, artists from the festival have
painted or plan to paint at least eight walls.
The festival, which
began Jan. 18 and runs through Feb. 20, purposefully coincides with the India
Art Fair in Delhi, which opened to the public Friday, and its organizers hope
that the simultaneity can drive a rare conversation among the practitioners of
street art, those of more traditional forms of art and the common people of the
city.
“What we’re doing here
is unprecedented,” said Hanif Kureshi, the 30-year-old creative director of the
festival. “Imagine one guy from Taiwan and another from Germany working on a
wall in Shahpur Jat. We want to get people to believe in it, while also pushing
the street art scene to do something that will put Delhi on the map.”
Two years ago, Mr.
Kureshi and Anpu Varkey, a prolific painter, succeeded in getting a bunch of
their artist friends together in Khirki, one of the urban villages, for what in
retrospect was Delhi’s first spontaneous street art festival. Since then, that
group called upon friends, who called upon other friends, to create this year’s
street art festival.
Eventually, 60 artists
were on board for St.Art, 40 from India, the rest from overseas. Some of the
latter paid their own way to India, intrigued by the opportunity, and others
were invited to Delhi by their embassies’ cultural agencies.
About 30 of the artists
are working on the wall project, like Amitabh Kumar, 29, who has painted walls
all over India and now also teaches his craft at the Srishti School of Art,
Design and Technology in Bangalore. “Seeing an empty wall just makes me want to
put an image on it,” he said.
In Shahpur Jat, images
on its walls include a giant poster-style portrait of the Bollywood actress
Nadira, a massive cat playing with a ball of yarn and Mr. Kumar’s
shapeshifting, animalesque blue cloud.
Each artist is
responsible for gaining permission from the owners of the building, and Mr.
Kumar and other artists said that has been an interesting process, unique to
the practice of curated street art.
“People have been
reasonable, for the most part,” said Mr. Kumar. “If they don’t like what we do,
we’ve offered to paint back over it. We’re also using weatherproof paint so
that helps insulate their homes.”
Mohammed Salim, 42, a
handyman who has lived in the apartment facing Mr. Kumar’s painting for 27
years, was a bit puzzled by the project next door. “It looks like a cat to me,”
he said. “I mean, it looks very good to me, but is he taking an art exam or what?
Meaning, there must be some objective.”
Many residents echoed
Mr. Salim’s concern: Why would anyone do this work for free?
Earlier this week, as
Mr. Kumar painted the wall while perched on scaffolding, a child shouted up to
him: “You’re making these for free, or what? Please make us one as well.” Mr.
Kumar said many other children had been making the same request.
Mr. Kureshi said it
would take time for most people, in urban villages or otherwise, to believe in
the concept of street artists working for personal motivations and
gratifications beyond money.
But time and again, they
have been welcomed and supported by the community, Mr. Kureshi said.
“These dudes from
Shahpur Jat, they Whatsapp me images of blank walls now, and say that we should
come here and do this one or that one,” he said, referring to the mobile chat
application.
Another older Shahpur
Jat resident only allowed his wall to be painted under the condition that, at
their own cost, the artists paint a scene from the Hindu epic Mahabharata below
their own creation, to which the artists reluctantly agreed.
Even Delhi’s police
force, ever averse to the untried and unconventional, agreed to a 100-plus foot
portrait of Mohandas K. Gandhi on the side of their headquarters building in
central Delhi.
“Of course, we had to
paint something that everyone could agree on, like Gandhi,” said a
paint-splattered Ms. Varkey, 33.
She was collaborating on
the Gandhi painting with a German artist, Hendrik “ECB” Beikirch, 39, who is
known for his large-scale public wall portraits. His biggest is in Busan, South
Korea.
For five days, Ms.
Varkey and Mr. Beikirch worked from dawn until dusk, moving up and down the
wall with the help of the most extendable cherry picker on the market.
On Wednesday, they
finished the opus, adding Mr. Gandhi’s chest hairs with spray paint.
Mr. Kureshi said the
police higher-ups were familiarly incredulous that the work would be done for
free. He said one told him, “No one works without personal benefit. Or do you
want to win the Nobel Prize?”
For her part, Ms. Varkey
said it was enough that people might look at the painting and find it
interesting, or thought-provoking. The painting is visible from the Delhi
Metro, a major intersection, and the train tracks that take passengers to
points north and east of Delhi.
The eyes of Gandhi that
meet those of commuters and travelers alike are calm and loving, as they watch
over the cacophonous ebb and flow of Delhi’s people.
