Date:09/12/2005 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2005/12/09/stories/2005120903070200.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

`Installations' ephemeral?

Special Correspondent

A debate seems to be going on at an artists' camp

Bangalore: Old tyres, scrap wood, pieces of steel and aluminium have been used to create "installation art", which is a form of contemporary sculpture. Artists who swear by it scoff at its critics as rigid and outdated. Of course, there are other critics, ready to read meaning into installations of art and praise them.

The Karnataka Shilpakala Academy obviously takes a more conservative view as was evident at its camp for 10 artists from five southern States, now on at artist Venkatachalapathy's studio at Ittamadu, near Bangalore.

Poet Sumateendra Nadig, who inaugurated the artists' camp, felt artists must have high ideals to give society their best. "If we produce perishable works with perishable material, it amounts to a kind of ingratitude towards society,'' he said. Rm. Palaniappan, Regional Secretary, Lailit Kala Academy, Chennai, said young sculptors are creating works in different media, including fibreglass, because these are inexpensive.