By Dhani
This piece is an excerpt of a full-length article from the 2022 Fall/Winter issue of our print newsletter Connect. This print offering is available to our community in the U.S. To learn more, head to aviusa.org/connect.
The art scene in Auroville is a weird and wonderful space. It arises and vanishes and arises again, like beautiful architecture emerging from a dense jungle now and then for a sly wink before being subsumed back into it.
The word ‘scene’ itself is actually misleading, as much as the idea that Auroville in its present incarnation is a ‘city.’ There is little in the way of a traditional ‘art scene’, per sé; no weekly gallery openings or galas celebrating the work of one artist or another. Instead, what one sees is a vast, translucent web of connections between artists of various disciplines, the venues in which they exhibit, and the public.
It has been remarked, by individuals ranging from Allen Ginsberg to Bob Dylan to Jean Dubuffet, that one sign of a well-functioning society is when arts and crafts become one single holistic venture. This is certainly the case here in Auroville, where potters rub shoulders with architects, painters, musicians and sculptors. Indeed, all artistic disciplines can here be broadly categorized (with another sly wink) under the label of ‘public works’. And while this might seem like a confusing state of affairs to some, it represents a kind of manna for artists themselves, many of whom come from outside of AV to exhibit in spaces like Centre D’Art or Pitanga.
“I could only ever have done this right here in Auroville,” affirms painter Bhavyo Trivedi, as we talked just before the opening of his debut exhibition at the former venue. “Not only the kind of space and time that was afforded me, but the encouragement and help I received from others. It still floors me, in a way. I wouldn’t be doing any of this without the help and guidance of so many others… so many of them not even only from the artistic side, but in every aspect.”
For an older artist like sculptor and painter Adil Writer, the appeal lies especially in the radically different ways of artistic networking – so often an almost literary headache in big cities – which become possible in the small-town atmosphere of Auroville.
“We ceramic artists and potters have quite a tight community here; I think more so than the painters and architects, who are often very consumed with their own work and ideas. But the potters all seem to know and appreciate each other, and we still manage to teach each other new things, no matter how old we are.”
In terms of the history of art in Auroville, one can only go to the source: documentation over the years has been thoroughly Indian in its seeming disregard for clear chronicling. Adil himself is currently working on a film entitled “Golden Bridges”, which traces the history of stoneware and ceramics in the area, starting with Ray and Deborah of Golden Bridge Pottery meeting in California in 1968 and moving onward through the many years into what has become a rich and diverse artistic lineage.
“I’ll just say it: every time I go to an old-timer’s house around here, I find a painting on a wall that I like,” says Adil. “And I’ll ask ‘whose is this?’ And very often the answer will be ‘Ireno’. Now nobody even knows Ireno used to paint! And many people won’t even believe it until they see the paintings. All these things need to be put together in a museum of Auroville art.”