Dr Alka Pande is an art historian who has taught Indian Arts and Aesthetics at Panjab University for over ten years. Her major interests include gender identity, sexuality, and traditional arts. She has received numerous awards, including the Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters, the Australian-India Council Special Award, and Chandigarh Lalit Kala Akademi honours to mention a few. Pande has also been involved in curating exhibitions and has been awarded the CIMA Lifetime Achievement Award 2023. She is currently the head of the Visual Art Gallery at the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi. Dr Pande also set up the Bihar Museum Biennale in 2021 and is now the chief curator for the Bihar Museum Biennale.
Recently Dr. Alka Pande released her monumental work, “108 Portraits of Indian Culture and Heritage.” This immersive collection of 14 collectable books, each exploring a distinct discipline such as art, architecture, objects, crafts, and more, showcases her dedication and expertise in the field of Indian art and aesthetics. Dr. Pande’s ability to encapsulate India’s rich cultural history, including illuminating art, architecture, and cultural landscape, while interweaving personal anecdotes, serves as a remarkable source of inspiration. Her work is not only lauded as an invaluable resource for scholars and enthusiasts but also recognised for its significant contribution to preserving and promoting India’s cultural heritage.
Nidheesh: So, at Abir, we also have lots of young artists who, you know, we are part of their journey. They make us a point of association. I would want to hear from you what you tell them. If they have the next 20, 30, or 40 years ahead of their career in art, how should they approach this oncoming journey?
Dr. Pande: They have to have total integrity to the craft. They should not sell out. When I say ‘sell out,’ it’s like doctors today in these private hospitals—they have targets to meet. I just met an artist who said, ‘I used to do water colours, but now I’m doing acrylic because I’ve been rejected by certain galleries because I do water colours, and nobody’s buying watercolours now.’
It depends on the artist. If it’s a matter of hunger, change to acrylics. I’m not saying don’t experiment, but if you’re changing to acrylics, do it with integrity and total honesty to the medium. But if you have a little bit of a cushion, don’t give up what is integral to you. Do what pleases and consumes you because it is the passion that ultimately sees you through everything.
When I enrolled for my Fine Art degree, my first MA was in History. When I enrolled for my second MA in Art History, way back in 1981, which is almost 45 years ago, somebody asked me, ‘Finance? What is this?’ Two years later, once I finished, I was feeling very thrilled. A very successful bureaucrat asked me, ‘What are you going to do with this? What is it going to get you?’ And today, I think it’s got me so much. It’s brought me so much joy. It’s brought me so many different people. It’s brought enrichment to my life.
And when I look at that bureaucrat who passed that remark at me today, I see where he is, and I see how alive I am. I rest my case.
Nidheesh: It’s also the significant role of curators in India, especially in the art scene, where we can see lots of new things happening. What do you think about this? How do you see the role of curators?
Dr. Pande: That’s a loaded question, and I’m a little nervous to answer it, but I frankly will not care now. I think today everybody’s become a curator. What do you say to that? Now you are curating food, curating parties, even curating your dress. So, the word ‘curator’ is an extremely overused word.
A curator, in the olden days, was a keeper—the keeper of a museum, the keeper of a collection. ‘Curare’ means to heal, to make a thing healthy. So, when you look at curation, it is also an expertise, and this expertise needs a lot of study. I’m not saying you need to study only art history; a physicist can also be a curator. But you need to know exactly what is happening in society and the implications of various things.
For instance, today, the most important concerns for all of us are ecology and climate change. A person at a museum who looks after a collection of manuscripts can become a curator of climate change and ecology if they have studied palm leaf manuscripts, observed the flora and fauna, and seen their disappearance. They can become a great curator of climate change and sustainability. But you need to have the right context and deep scholarship. You can’t just use the fancy word ‘curator,’ put a group of 10 artists and their works together, and call yourself a curator. It requires a lot more conceptual thought, reference, and context.
This reminds me of a lovely book we were taught when I was doing my first MA in History. It’s a small book—I don’t know if it’s still available—called ‘What Is History?’ by E.H. Carr. If you take that and ask, ‘What is curation?’ you’ll find it’s a mix of history, sociology, anthropology, social behavior, and many other things.
Today, as a curator, you have to decide what you want to curate. It’s better if you have a primary focus. For example, I like to do all my work in areas where I’ve studied a lot: poetry, dance, music, gender, and sexuality. I prefer to work in the area of gender and sexuality. Of course, I can work in other areas because I have the expertise, but for young curators, I would say first know the literature. Educate yourself, and by educating, I don’t just mean degrees, doctorates, and postdoctorates. I’ve done two MAs, a PhD, and postdoctoral work, and yes, it helped me a lot. But my actual work emerged after my PhD because that is there only to teach you the systems and the ability to think out of the box.
That is the important thing. After you know the language, it is important to know the language of curation and then think beyond it, push the envelopes of creativity, and create a new product.
Nidheesh: So, how many shows should a curator be doing in a year?
Dr. Pande: It depends. If you want to be a commercial curator, you can do one show a month, no problem, and if you can do it well, that’s great. If you want to curate a serious collection for a museum, even a small one, I would say a minimum of one year is required.
You need to understand the objects, even if there are only 200. You need to write about them, have a lead essay, and provide captions, at a minimum. That would require at least eight hours of work every day. I curated an exhibition on women deities at the Bihar Museum, and it took me that much time. I worked every day for at least eight hours.
