4...AGS: What is a Thought PillTM? Does it counter the triumph of the commodity, the stationary “spectaculars” (billboards) and displacement of the spectator's literal and psychological perception?
JB: A ‘ThoughtPillTM (by my own invention) is Viagra for the Mind. It stimulates the suppressed ability to question and challenge all that the mind is fed subliminally. It makes the mind aware of its psychological manipulation in the interest of and by the brand. Commodity per se is not an evil if it can be of genuine benefit, like a vitamin. A ThoughtPillTM can then be like a thought supplement or a vaccine. If we live in a time when spirituality has to be bought, then so be it, so long as we know it would do us good!
6...AGS: Spirituality has also been subsumed in the culture of consumption. For example, Yoga & Ayurveda have become exotic products in capitalist culture. Marketing madness and advertising contribute to the excess that we witness today. What is your take on this as a cultural practitioner who is also an entrepreneur in today’s market system?
JB: In a post capitalist world (if I may now call it that) urban life is very complex and more and more people are turning to spirituality to find meaning and to be able to cope. Ironically, this has made spirituality a consumable. I have satirized this ‘McDonaldisation’ of spirituality in works like ‘Gulpasana – Portrait of MokshaBuyTM as Culture Consumer’. It is about the consumption and veneration of American culture in India and the exoticisation of Indian culture for export. It has been painted on Khadi, to recall the ideology of Gandhi’s Swadeshi movement. The works titled ‘Who am I?’, ‘Self Help Industry’ and ‘Desire and the Economy’ are about different aspects of the consumption of spirituality. The funny thing is, the so-called larger Indian market tends to buy into it’s own culture only after it is popularly consumed in the west. This is true for all Indian cultural products like Yoga, Ayurveda as well as Art.
As a cultural practitioner, I do not consider advertising and marketing absolute evils. They are important to the process of sustaining a healthy economy. It is only in a healthy economy that cultural practice can survive and grow, as in the case of the developed parts of the world. And if Desire ends, so does creativity! We must not forget what liberalization did for India and for Indian art. And advertising and media are a part of urban popular culture.
5...AGS: You have also re-created found objects used in religious ceremonies. What is your take on these traditional ritualistic objects which transform to ‘new’ commodities up for sale in the gallery? Isn’t it ironical?
JB: All my work in this series deals with the ironies of living in urban India!
Consumerism is the new secular religion and religion has become a fetish. Putting eyeballs on an object makes it self-aware and cognizant of its changing symbolism within the same context. The urban mind seems totally usurped by slick, gleaming products and urban rituals are about the veneration of consumer culture. This is why I have used ritualistic objects and ‘fetishized’ them. I’m a chocolate flavored evil!
9...AGS: Over the years, you have worked across various mediums; visual arts, communication design, photography & cartooning. In terms of the imagery in your current works, there is a clear logical transference, almost like an additive process or experimental extensions to your practice. Do you look at it in this way?
JB: Yes. The core ideology and concepts in my work have remained the same over the years and it has evolved over time, extending across mediums. For example, the photographs were abstract images dealing with concepts or theories about creation itself, which is the same as in the abstract paintings executed around that time.
In the early nineties, I had a comic strip called ‘Inside Ouch’ running in a mind-body-spirit magazine for about 5 years. My early practice in communication design had a lot of humor in it and often used saturated colour, which is the case for most of my artwork as well. I also did Interaction Design for a while and took courses in Animation as a Fine Art Medium.
I have an old relationship with text – in the past, I’ve written on art, had poems published and exhibited verse alongside my artworks. I wrote a book on Cartooning last year and was invited as a speaker at the Highlights Annual Conference a few years ago. (Highlights is the highest circulating children’s magazine in the US). In the current MokshaShotsTM series, text is an integral part of the works. A key objective of this series was to view everything as art – painting, writing, digital interactive work, design, the popular arts and everything as part of the larger discourse of contemporary art. Through this series, I wanted to collapse the boundaries that separated these art forms and create an integrated visual language that is non-hierarchical, making each of these art forms equally valid by putting popular culture on par with what is considered elitist.
10...AGS: Your earlier work dealt with chromatic abstraction with a highly articulated and psychological use of color, especially in its therapeutic qualities. Indian Aesthetics, Alternative Healing & Meditation informed this phase. How is it that you deal with the ‘spiritual’ which is read as versus the rational?
My earlier abstract works equated the theories of Quantum Physics, particularly Particle Theory with concepts from Vedanta. In both, matter is seen as energy and energy as vibration. From a scientific viewpoint, Colour is perceived due to the phenomenon of light and each colour is actually a vibrational frequency. Thus colour can affect a change on matter at a vibrational level, which is the most fundamental level of matter – living or non-living. I used this principle in my work.
Colour Science and Colour Therapy are established alternative practices in several parts of the world and considered complimentary to mainstream practice – aesthetics and medicine.
Science looks at physical proof to validate a theory. Spirituality considers personal experience as validation. This is the basic difference, but eventually both arrive at the same place. For instance, according to Vedanta, Thought is also an action, which can be used to influence a physical event or entity. Experiments in Particle Physics say that the experimenter ultimately influences the outcome of the experiment by his subjective view – his thoughts or mind. So, the spiritual and the rational are just two different ways of arriving at the same point.
And the current MokshaShotsTM series – Liberation through Consumption looks at the commodification of spirituality and the quest for fulfillment from a very rational and humorous point of view!
11...AGS: How does the city of Mumbai, its economic divisions, its distortions, its mill/mall context affect you as an artist? You also react to the workings of the art world with large doses of wry humour. Tell us more.
JB: I was born and grew up in Mumbai and have a passionate relationship with the city.
Its economic disparity can be heart wrenching, as it can be provocative. I’m affected by it’s unrelenting drive and spirit, it’s largess to accommodate diversity in all its forms and mostly by it’s daily assault on the senses- it’s noise is the noisiest, it’s smells are the sharpest, it’s colors are the brightest and it’s heart is the warmest!
The city seams to deal with its history in chaotic, emotional and pragmatic ways. On the one hand there are communal tensions, on the other, fierce protests to preserve individual rights or heritage sites and yet another – spaces in and around abandoned mills have become art galleries. Malls are mushrooming everywhere and they function as much as amusement parks as they do as experiments in consumerism.
As a citizen of Mumbai, I use humor as a life jacket and as an individual and artist it is an integral part of my worldview and practice. We live in a time when everything is sacred and yet nothing – not even religion really is, so I cannot expect art to be.
Works titled ‘Art Commodity’ and ‘Performance Art’ came about when I witnessed a lot of ill-informed views on contemporary art doing the rounds. I mean, a few months ago, some people classified anything made out of material other than paint on canvas as contemporary art! I enjoy making digs at the absurdities within the art world and the changing definition of art itself, which many of its practitioners in this city consider Oh-So-Holy! Besides, Anti-art is also Art.
12...AGS: What are your future plans and where do we see you from here onwards?
JB: MokshaShotsTM as a core concept is here to stay. The imagery could be extended into several forms of aesthetic practice- maybe film, new media and design. The MokshaShotsTM concept, deities and everything related has been copyrighted to me internationally, so the process has already begun.
