A photograph tells us a story—at times, many stories. But what kind of stories does it narrate? Does it tell us the ‘truth,’ or does it leave something for us to imagine and reimagine? How do hidden stories surface and take us over by means of a sudden encounter with a photograph? What is its power to transform and move us—emotionally, psychologically, and temporally. Photographs are perhaps events in/of time—they push us to look back, to speculate, contemplate, dream, they dare us to imagine, they reveal, they are prophetic, they enable us to anticipate, recognize, and sometimes misrecognize. 

This is the first in a series of photo-essays based on the photographic work of artist and educator Jyoti Bhatt. Beginning in the 1950s, Jyoti Bhatt’s art practice has traversed several media. Though he was trained as a painter, he has been better known as a printmaker (following studies at the Pratt Institute in New York) and as an educator who taught for several decades at the at M.S. University of Baroda since the 1960s. What fascinates me, however, are his photographic works, in particular the several tens of thousands of photographs he took during his incessant travels across India. These were not sporadic instances where he would use his camera to take some pictures on and off, but rather a ceaseless, almost compulsive urge that has resulted in a large body of photographs.

Going beyond mere ‘documentation’ of events, landscapes, and cultural practices, Bhatt’s photographs unfolded histories and narratives, hitherto untold or marginalised until his camera captured them. In his photos, we see how multiple domains—the pedagogic and the artistic, the domestic and the communal, the ritualistic and the mundane—converged into the fold of modern art. We see photographs of rural India in the form of documentation of traditional art forms, folk performances, festivals and rituals, as well as of the art community—of art exhibitions, gatherings, portraits of artists, art institutions and spaces, and last but not least, the art school where he studied and taught—the Faculty of Fine Arts in Baroda. Merging these varied forms of interactions as forming vessels of cultural practices, his seemingly ‘documented’ photographs conjure up strikingly improbable moments as defining moments in the history of art in terms of important exhibitions, initiatives, and experiments.

Jyoti Bhatt took this photo as part of a series titled, Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal, 1982. This photo captures an informal gathering of prominent artists, writers, and critics at, as the title suggests, Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal in 1982. It is a documentary record of the formation of the art institution that was established in the same year. As the years went by, this institution became a hub for artists and cultural practitioners to collectively participate in the shaping of a discourse on ‘modern art’. This multi-arts complex brought together diverse art forms such as poetry, theatre, visual arts, cinema, and music.

Designed by modernist architect and urban planner Charles Correa, Bharat Bhavan was inaugurated in 1982 as a result of the efforts of poet and cultural administrator Ashok Vajpeyi and artist J. Swaminathan. With the reintroduction of outdoor spaces and terraces in modernist architecture, Correa designed the plan for Bharat Bhavan, where the large open space was converted into an open-air amphitheatre-like space with horizontal steps and wide ramp-walks looking across the Bada Talab (Upper Lake) in the backdrop. 

This photograph captures one of the first informal gatherings of artists at Bharat Bhavan. We see them sitting on the steps, talking, discussing, listening and watching as they experience the winds flowing from the lake behind them, the winds that perhaps carried the scent of refreshing, radical beginnings. Resting their backs against the stone wall, we see artist and writer Bhupen Khakhar, artist Vivan Sundaram, and art critic Geeta Kapur. At the back, artists Manjit Bawa and Mrinalini Mukherjee sit next to Geeti Sen. In the foreground, from left to right, are artists K.G. Subramanyan, Paramjit Singh, Jogen Chowdhury, and poet Ashok Vajpeyi. Sitting in a convivial, contemplative mood, devoid of any dissonance, these cultural practitioners seem to be speculating and postulating collectively on the emancipatory impulses of art making, and what this new space has to offer to them and to the larger field of art. 

Playing an instrumental role in shaping this institution, J. Swaminathan conceived this space as a radical alternative to the ongoing discourse on modern and contemporary art. Though not present in this photograph, Swaminathan’s presence cannot be disregarded. Through his efforts, contrary to modernist visions of a universal language, the site of Bhopal was imagined outside the burgeoning sites of modern art such as Delhi, Mumbai and Baroda, forging multiple histories of art making and art institutions. Visible through the proximity of the photographer Jyoti Bhatt with the group of artists sitting on the steps speculating the new currents, this counterpoint is articulated profoundly in the way these artists and cultural practitioners are looking away from the camera lens while gazing out of the picture in the same direction—perhaps reimagining a new vision, new space and new modes of art making. 

This new vision was comprised of many strands, one of which was perhaps reflected in the structure of Bharat Bhavan. The spectral presence of J. Swaminathan as well as the institution of Bharat Bhavan in this photo puts forth many possibilities for interpretation and representation. Addressing it as ‘contemporaneity as a simultaneous validity of co-existing cultures’, Swaminathan had imbued the art and craft dichotomy with modern art practice as well as the universal notion of modern and contemporary art. Interestingly, Bharat Bhavan became a centre for holding the collection of tribal art which J. Swaminathan was instrumental in bringing together. With an emphasis on correcting the ‘distorted perspective’ of the urban-centric modern art practitioners, this stance is perhaps in conjunction with Jyoti Bhatt’s larger project of documenting the living traditions of India, but through photography. 

While charting out their varied approaches and complex positions, artists and critics like K G Subramanyan, Jyoti Bhatt, J. Swaminathan, Mrinalini Mukherjee, and Geeta Kapur addressed the notion of tradition and indigenism through their art practice and writings. The gathering of artists and critics in this photo evidently showcases an interest in engaging with the fraught idea of tradition in multiple ways. In some ways, this photo entangles these ideas where it is equally fascinating to see how it posits the idea of contemporaneity and how it captures a simultaneous presence of cultural practitioners within the open space of an art institution that was premised on the idea of being an antithesis to hierarchical and dichotomous structures of art. In spite of  its unrealised promises and the controversies that engulfed the institution in the following years making it a fraught site, what this photo does is that it allows us to re-imagine the moment of its founding. A moment that beholds its forward looking ideas and new vision that it had promised in that moment of inception. It would be interesting to see, therefore, how this ‘ideal vision’, something that is a visualised image or a ‘photograph’ of the collective action in this case, that was conceived through the act of ‘gazing out’, is interpreted today and then transmuted in the following years as the time passes and histories are shared, remembered, and forgotten.