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ARTICLES RELATED TO RIMZON'S WORK

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His idiom has imbibed in a unique manner elements of the Conceptual and Minimalist attitudes through which he pares down archetypal imagery in order to reach the core of things, rudimentary states and fine qualities of humanism. This allows for his basic shapes to induce multifarious associations, apparently opposing or unrelated, but eventually disclosing or rather indicating a reconstruction of meaning and values. Steering his sculptures arranged in an installation-like space and stimulated by discontinuities, suggestiveness and contradictions of size, colour, setting etc. he directs the viewer to a complex experience of his imagining mingled with that of the artist. He relies on indigenous classic art forms of aesthetic emotive and symbolic nature, along with personal, contemporary, even utilitarian ones. The approach is essentially post-modernist as well as essentially Indian at a time of cultural and social transition. His main motifs repeat in related configurations, their meaning dependent on context and titles' suggestion. Rimzon's later work rooted in specific classic forms, have a greater simplicity and immediate power. The Tirthankara-like figure of austerity and spiritual purity placed in a cosmic circle of swords or tools evokes the eternal duality of violence and materiality contra human aspirations. The earthen pot contains creative water as the mother and the fertile woman violated by a weapon or charged

with energy, but it can also serve to denote the self and the practice of untouchability. The other steady motifs are the egg and the lover couple the generative forces and the house of sheltering and of the sacred.

Rimzon's solo shows were held at Art Heritage, New Delhi 1991, 93, School's Gallery, Amsterdam 1994. The main participation's are: Seven Young Sculptures, New Delhi 1985, 1 00 years of Indian Art, National Gallery of Modem Art, New Delhi 1994, Art and Nature, New Delhi 1995, The Other Self, New York and Stadelijk Museum, Amsterdam 1995,2ndAsia Pacific Triennale, Brisbane, Fire and Life, New Delhi 1996.

2. Rimzon is one of the internationally acclaimed artists and has started working on installations in the late eighties. As an artist, Rimzon believes in the power of art as a sociological tool as well as a spiritual vehicle. His public sphere installations executed in the early nineties evidently showed the corrective force of art. According to Rimzon art has its own value as a correcting force between the individual human being and something sublime within or beyond the individual.

The artist explains it in terms of phenomenology. He and his works talk of the 'inside' and 'outside' of things. He selects rounded objects, or he devices rounded objects like a pot or other artefact like a house that can explain the 'inside-ouside' theory well. As an artist who is socially committed and at the same time committed to the pure aesthetic values of art, Rimzon oscillates between social issues and phenomenological issues.

3 . His sculptures, arranged in an installation-like space, energised by various contradictions of size, colour, setting etc. he directs the viewer to a complex experience of his imagining. Inspired by Ram Kinker Baij, German realism and expressionist figuration, he exaggerates and then distorts his figures. He has had site specific installations, like Far Away from 108 Feet (1995), which calls for the viewer’s familiarity with Hindu social codes and effectively portrays the survival of the caste-system in India; Speaking Stones (1998) also highlights the atrocities and massacres that have been a part of Indian history post independence. His other installations like, The Tools (1993) and The Inner Voice (1992), seek to bring out the intrinsic connection between religion and violence in contemporary India

4.The power of art to influence and transform lives

N.N.Rimzon, one of India's leading sculptors, believes in the potential of art to transform.

Rimzon, who was born in the sleepy village of Kakkoor in Ernakulam district, says he realised the enormous possibilities of art when he joined the College of Fine Arts, Thiruvananthapuram, in 1976. He was in the first batch of the college. "It was like entering a new world," he recalls.

"Till then, I had only seen calendar pictures, read something about Ravi Varma and Picasso and heard about Van Gogh. The realisation that art is a big, vast, world, dawned there.

"All my class mates were dedicated. We were not bothered about `future' after studies. We wanted to be artists; that was the sole purpose of life. There was a charged atmosphere, idealism in the air." Mr. Rimzon remembers the sense of collective effort that prevailed among them. It helped them continue in the field of art. "The sense of collectivity gave us the courage to leave home and family behind."

There was a yearning for freedom, for creative experiments in that post-Emergency period. He reminiscences that they were not bothered about `earning' at that time. After graduation, Rimzon left for Baroda to do his postgraduation at the Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University. Later, he got an Inlaks scholarship, to London. "When I got the Inlaks, the biggest relief was that I could continue working for two more years, without bothering about anything."

In 1989, Rimzon returned to New Delhi where he held solo shows in 1991 and 1993.

So, why did he choose `Sculpture,' at art school? Rimzon says from the very beginning, he had a way with three-dimensional form. However, the decisive suggestion to choose sculpture came from Kanayi Kunhiraman, sculptor, who was teaching at the Government College of Fine Arts.

Rimzon says it took 10 years for his work to reach a stable position. "While in Thiruvananthapuram, I had good skill. But, I realised that skill alone was not enough. Developing a language was important.

I could not do anything concrete during the Thiruvananthapuram days. It was at Baroda that my works grew mature." His pathbreaking work, `Man in the Chalk Circle,' was made at Baroda. He was 27 then.

In 1986, when installation was just beginning to be accepted in India, he exhibited a work of installation at the Sixth Triennale International in New Delhi.

He has participated in many exhibitions in and outside India, including New York, Amsterdam and Brisbane among others.

His major shows include the Venice Biennale, 1993, the Second Asia Pacific Triennale of Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery, 1996, Stadelijk Museum, Amsterdam and `Edge of Desire: Recent Art in India,' Queen's Art Museum, New York, 2005.

BY Renu Ramanath .[THE HINDU]

5.Exploring language of sculpture

"Art should work towards evoking a shared experience of the self, linked with the history of art, literature, or culture in general," says noted artist N.N. Rimzon. The Thiruvananthapuram-based artist, whose works have received international acclaim, points out that the survival of the shared experience or the secular stance that he has maintained during the past 20 years or so an artist is important in the present context.

He believes that art has the potential to transform. A work of art can transform an individual, working at an unconscious level. And for Mr. Rimzon, this has always been true. Since, as he points out, his own life was transformed by the power of art.

Born in a sleepy village, Kakkoor, in Ernakulam district, Mr. Rimzon realised the vastness of the world of art as he stepped into the College of Fine Arts in Thiruvananthapuram. He had joined the college in 1976, a significant time in the history of Kerala. The college itself was in its early days, after being upgraded from the status of an institute. They were the first batch of the college. "It was like entering a new world," he remembers. "Till then, I had only seen the calendar pictures, had read something about Ravi Varma and Picasso and heard about Van Gogh. But, the idea that art is a big world, something vast, occurred after entering the College of Fine Arts."

BY Renu Ramanath .[THE HINDU]

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Collapsing borders

Nancy Adajania

The author is a documentary film-maker; she is currently Editor of The Art News Magazine of India.

Let me begin with a cautionary tale. I choose my example from cinema, which, like the visual arts, is subjected to the tantallising rebus of globalisation. The film in question is "Chunhyang," made by the Korean director Im Kwon-Taek, which was selected as a competition entry at this year's Cannes film festival. As film critic Lee Yong-Kwan points out (in Cinemaya No: 49, Autumn 2000), the film as released internationally at Cannes was a re-edited version of the original made for domestic screening. It must be noted that this practice of re-editing a film, leaving it context-specific for the local audience while universalising it to tailor-fit the international audience in a global context, is more often the rule rather than the exception as far as Asian cinema is concerned.