ARTIST IN DEATH THREAT TROUBLE FOR ‘BLASPHEMY’
Text by: Sally Acharya
Photos by: Thomas L. Kelly
Paintings of a goddess in a miniskirt and a gun-toting god in a Superman cape prompted a charge of blasphemy and an alleged death threat against a young artist in Kathmandu, where police padlocked a gallery and hauled the artist and gallery director in front of authorities this week for “outrageous portrayals” of Hindu gods.
Artists charged that the action violated freedom of expression, while others called the paintings an insult to Hinduism. The clash highlights cultural fault lines in a fast-urbanizing country that until 2008 was a Hindu kingdom but is now a secular democracy where teens in Brittney Spears t-shirts check Facebook on cell phones outside temples filled with sari-clad worshipers.
Artist Manish Harijan, 27, painted Hindu and Buddhist deities in superhero attire, with one god brandishing a gun and another in a tussle with Captain America. The goddess Kali, a potent expression of time and change who typically appears as a half-naked fury with a garland of skulls, got a makeover as a mini-skirted Superwoman giving the viewer the finger.
To the artist, it was anger and power in modern dress, a translation of Hindu power symbols into modern global archetypes. The mix-and-match paintings intend to show the influence of Western culture on Eastern thought, said Harijan, who painted the series during a residency at the Kathmandu Contemporary Arts Centre in the temple-filled Himalayan capital.
Buddhist and Hindu images are pervasive in the city’s tourist quarter, where god-headed puppets dangle in shops, guesthouses are named for deities, and the eyes of Buddha, an iconic symbol of Kathmandu, are embroidered onto t-shirts and purses. Nepal even has an airline called Buddha Air.
But the depiction of gods as Pop Art icons, complete with a “Real Buddha” clutching a throwaway box of Real Juice, proved too much for activists of the World Hindu Federation (WHF). They didn’t see questions about modernity; they saw insult and mockery.
According to artists and gallery personnel, a group of young men who had been in and out of the gallery for days, taking pictures of the art, reappeared this week with retired army colonel Hem Bahadur Karki, president of the WHF.
“They began to shout, ‘We can shoot you. Also we can burn your paintings,” said gallery director Sangeeta Thapa.
Artist Jupiter Pradhan was at the gallery and tried to explain the art’s intended meanings. “I told them it’s not about what they thought. It’s not anti-Hindu; it is about cultural influence from the West. But they were so aggressive.”
Karki said he made no threats but was deeply offended by the art, no matter its purpose. “I had never been to that gallery. I did not like what I saw. The artist tried to explain this is fusion. I said, leave this fusion with you. People don’t digest these things.”
When the police arrived, “we thought they were coming to protect the artist,” said Thapa. Instead, the police sealed the gallery, and when Kathmandu’s Chief of Police and the Chief District Officer arrived later to see the art for themselves, they also saw it as mockery.
There’s a traditional time to lampoon serious subjects, the artist and director were told: the once-a-year festival of Gai Jatra, a day when parades of masked citizens can clown about anything. Legend says that it began to make a bereaved queen laugh in her grief, and on that day, anything goes. But on the walls of a gallery, tucked away in a posh labyrinth of cafes and boutiques frequented by expats and Kathmandu’s elite, the officials agreed that the art looked like an insult to the sensibilities of ordinary citizens.
After a day of closed-door negotiations and a rally by artists and supporters waving signs about freedom of expression, the gallery was reopened with caveats about showing offensive art. But artists fear the compromise about one exhibit, due to close soon anyway, leaves the broader question of freedom of expression in Nepal unanswered and a young painter unprotected and vulnerable.
Harijan is a dalit, a member of a community once known as untouchable. Discrimination is legally abolished and banning dalits from entering temples and drinking from common wells is now against the law in Nepal, but the irony of a dalit being accused of blasphemy for paintings that arguably tread on religious toes was not lost on the artist’s supporters.
The website of the Nepal-based World Hindu Federation says it is devoted not only to promoting affinities between Hinduism, Buddhism and related faiths, but in eradicating discriminatory social customs. Karki, its president, says the group never threatened violence and not all of the complaints came from his group, but from an independent party who was also offended. However, he says, the artist and gallery owner are treading on risky ground when they show inflammatory art. “If they depict such things, we will do more severe things than this.”
Lok Chitrekar, a traditional artist whose paintings follow ancient prescriptions, worries that activists are on the wrong track. “As a traditional artist, I follow all the rules implied by religious texts … but Manish’s work is an artifact, a contemporary form where he wanted to show the impact of Western on Eastern way of life by connecting Eastern Gods with superheroes. If it has hurt Hindu believers, then there should be a wise discussion. Threatening an artist’s life and shutting down an art gallery is no answer.”
Meanwhile, artists have begun another response: a group called Let’s Censor Art, whose Facebook page is filled with examples of the ancient erotic art carved on the struts of Kathmandu’s temples. The artists are photo-shopping them to give the deities a more modest wardrobe.
Read MorePhotos by: Thomas L. Kelly
Paintings of a goddess in a miniskirt and a gun-toting god in a Superman cape prompted a charge of blasphemy and an alleged death threat against a young artist in Kathmandu, where police padlocked a gallery and hauled the artist and gallery director in front of authorities this week for “outrageous portrayals” of Hindu gods.
Artists charged that the action violated freedom of expression, while others called the paintings an insult to Hinduism. The clash highlights cultural fault lines in a fast-urbanizing country that until 2008 was a Hindu kingdom but is now a secular democracy where teens in Brittney Spears t-shirts check Facebook on cell phones outside temples filled with sari-clad worshipers.
Artist Manish Harijan, 27, painted Hindu and Buddhist deities in superhero attire, with one god brandishing a gun and another in a tussle with Captain America. The goddess Kali, a potent expression of time and change who typically appears as a half-naked fury with a garland of skulls, got a makeover as a mini-skirted Superwoman giving the viewer the finger.
To the artist, it was anger and power in modern dress, a translation of Hindu power symbols into modern global archetypes. The mix-and-match paintings intend to show the influence of Western culture on Eastern thought, said Harijan, who painted the series during a residency at the Kathmandu Contemporary Arts Centre in the temple-filled Himalayan capital.
Buddhist and Hindu images are pervasive in the city’s tourist quarter, where god-headed puppets dangle in shops, guesthouses are named for deities, and the eyes of Buddha, an iconic symbol of Kathmandu, are embroidered onto t-shirts and purses. Nepal even has an airline called Buddha Air.
But the depiction of gods as Pop Art icons, complete with a “Real Buddha” clutching a throwaway box of Real Juice, proved too much for activists of the World Hindu Federation (WHF). They didn’t see questions about modernity; they saw insult and mockery.
According to artists and gallery personnel, a group of young men who had been in and out of the gallery for days, taking pictures of the art, reappeared this week with retired army colonel Hem Bahadur Karki, president of the WHF.
“They began to shout, ‘We can shoot you. Also we can burn your paintings,” said gallery director Sangeeta Thapa.
Artist Jupiter Pradhan was at the gallery and tried to explain the art’s intended meanings. “I told them it’s not about what they thought. It’s not anti-Hindu; it is about cultural influence from the West. But they were so aggressive.”
Karki said he made no threats but was deeply offended by the art, no matter its purpose. “I had never been to that gallery. I did not like what I saw. The artist tried to explain this is fusion. I said, leave this fusion with you. People don’t digest these things.”
When the police arrived, “we thought they were coming to protect the artist,” said Thapa. Instead, the police sealed the gallery, and when Kathmandu’s Chief of Police and the Chief District Officer arrived later to see the art for themselves, they also saw it as mockery.
There’s a traditional time to lampoon serious subjects, the artist and director were told: the once-a-year festival of Gai Jatra, a day when parades of masked citizens can clown about anything. Legend says that it began to make a bereaved queen laugh in her grief, and on that day, anything goes. But on the walls of a gallery, tucked away in a posh labyrinth of cafes and boutiques frequented by expats and Kathmandu’s elite, the officials agreed that the art looked like an insult to the sensibilities of ordinary citizens.
After a day of closed-door negotiations and a rally by artists and supporters waving signs about freedom of expression, the gallery was reopened with caveats about showing offensive art. But artists fear the compromise about one exhibit, due to close soon anyway, leaves the broader question of freedom of expression in Nepal unanswered and a young painter unprotected and vulnerable.
Harijan is a dalit, a member of a community once known as untouchable. Discrimination is legally abolished and banning dalits from entering temples and drinking from common wells is now against the law in Nepal, but the irony of a dalit being accused of blasphemy for paintings that arguably tread on religious toes was not lost on the artist’s supporters.
The website of the Nepal-based World Hindu Federation says it is devoted not only to promoting affinities between Hinduism, Buddhism and related faiths, but in eradicating discriminatory social customs. Karki, its president, says the group never threatened violence and not all of the complaints came from his group, but from an independent party who was also offended. However, he says, the artist and gallery owner are treading on risky ground when they show inflammatory art. “If they depict such things, we will do more severe things than this.”
Lok Chitrekar, a traditional artist whose paintings follow ancient prescriptions, worries that activists are on the wrong track. “As a traditional artist, I follow all the rules implied by religious texts … but Manish’s work is an artifact, a contemporary form where he wanted to show the impact of Western on Eastern way of life by connecting Eastern Gods with superheroes. If it has hurt Hindu believers, then there should be a wise discussion. Threatening an artist’s life and shutting down an art gallery is no answer.”
Meanwhile, artists have begun another response: a group called Let’s Censor Art, whose Facebook page is filled with examples of the ancient erotic art carved on the struts of Kathmandu’s temples. The artists are photo-shopping them to give the deities a more modest wardrobe.
