‘Real art is subversive and one has to learn to negotiate’: Shalini Sawhney of The Guild

It’s what you don’t see that needs the pause when you slow down and look carefully at what you’ve missed, or perhaps forgotten. Like looking at a watercolour A Ramachandran and remembering how he mastered the internal structure of plants and people, which shows in his works based on magic realism. Or seeing a KG Subramanyan in enamel for the first time, even though rarely anyone knows the Santiniketan art was a master of every medium – canvas, glass, stone, books or walls. His study of human anatomy finds exaggerated detailing in these frames. Photographer Ram Rahman’s poster of Ayodhya has within it Ramkinkar Baij’s sculpture of Gandhi during the Dandi March, there’s Geeta Kapur mapping the cultural hory, and landscape architect Ravindran Bhan’s exquisite drawings of the Ayodhya ghat.
The show ‘Past-Present-Continuous: 25 Years of The Guild’, the Alibaug-based gallery has 37 arts, collated nine curators under different themes, on display at Delhi’s Bikaner House till August 26. Excerpts from an interview with Shalini Sawhney, founder-director of The Guild:
Could you tell us how you began The Guild in 1997?
It was fortuitous. I came without any social capital of any kind. I just woke up one morning and knew this is what I wanted to do, and I learned along the way. Our first show was a group show, but the third one, we had excellent arts showing with us, including KG Subramanyan and Anupam Sud. Then a couple of collectors got to know and they spread the word. That helped. We moved often in Mumbai, because we were always on rent, but within Colaba. About seven years ago, we moved to Alibaug.
You spoke of how arts supported you. Could you elaborate?
I would make it a point to spend time with arts and build up a rapport. In those days, we would organise art camps to get to know them better. We had many who came, including Gulam Mohammed Sheikh, Nilima and Bhupen Khakhar.
A rare KG Subramanyan in enamel (2002). (Photo: The Guild)
We had a solo show with Krishen Khanna in 2000. We were barely three years old then. That’s how they supported us, giving a young gallery a chance, and that’s how we grew.
Tell us about this Delhi exhibition and how you’ve got some unique works – KG Subramanyan’s enamel, Krishen Khanna’s sketches, A Ramachandran’s early watercolours.
Mani da (KG Subramanyan) was in Santiniketan in 2003-04. They had just finished a workshop on enamel. To do an enamel workshop is not easy. It’s rare to see an enamel work him.
I like all my shows to be curated. In this show, we had to bring together 25 years of work. So, we got in writers and scholars, both young and established names, who took on the challenge. They barely had three months to present curatorial texts. I’m so grateful that the art community made it possible for galleries like us to sustain ourselves.
Could you tell us about some of your memorable exhibitions over the years?
What comes to my mind immediately is one we did with Mani da in 2010. He was in Santiniketan at the time. Every few months, I would visit him. He was a great storyteller with a great sense of humour. In December every year, they had the Nandan Mela, which made art accessible to common people. They would have painted terracotta platters that were sold for Rs 100-200. I requested Mani da to do these platters for us. The project took about a year and we had this show, where we also brought out a book The Painted Platter.
In 2018-19, we did a retrospective of Navjot Altaf, curated Nancy Adajania, at Mumbai’s National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA). It was her first retrospective and possibly for the first time that a living woman art was presented at NGMA. We had nearly 100 works, from the 1960s onwards.
And just before Covid-19, we had Sudhir Patwardhan’s retrospective in 2020.
Ram Rahman’s photos of the destruction of modern Delhi. (Photo: The Guild)
But there have been difficult moments, too?
Yes, 2010-11 was tough. After the Lehman Brothers crisis, the market went cold. There was a lull for four to five years. I had to sell some land to bring money into the gallery. There have been such moments, multiple times.
Galleries are facing another challenge these days, that of censorship.
It is a challenge. But while there is something as freedom of expression, there is no such thing as total freedom. We all are in a certain way limited the environment we live in. In any kind of work, we have to negotiate.
Real art is always very subversive and one has to learn to negotiate. There are sensitive moments, and in India we are a democracy with great deal of freedom. But, sometimes, you have to be aware of what’s going on.
How has the business of art changed?
We have always worked with collectors who were seriously engaged with what they were buying, and that continues. The collectors’ circuit has widened, but life has gotten busy, so decisions are taken based on photographs. Sometimes we miss those one-on-one interactions; it was a different camaraderie.
With many exhibitions and biennales now, how do you see the showing of art and its future?
Exciting. For a country as large as ours, we should have more art centres, more galleries, more foundations and museums. As the economy improves, and art and culture become more self-sustainable, things will improve.
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