Artists rally around MF Husain/ 15 December, 2006

Artists rally round Husain
Gayatri Jayaraman


Anjolie Ela Menon, Jatin Das and other artists of international repute will be shortly presenting a formal appeal to the government to allow self-exiled artist MF Husain to come home. Anjolie explains that this unified front by the artists has come in the wake of the Supreme Court recently asking that all cases against MF Husain be brought under one judicial body for review.

“It’s all political. This has nothing to do with freedom of expression,” says Anjolie, currently in Mumbai for the collective at the Museum Art Gallery. “These paintings were made 30-40 years ago, and are only now being targeted.

Some goons were asked to attack an exhibit and they pulled the hairs out of Jatin Das’ beard thinking him to be MF Husain, that’s how much they know about the art!” Anjolie continues: “Just post-independence, artists were caught up in nationalism. Today, everything is grist for the mill — artists paint, use cowdung, roll over their canvases—nothing is off limits. Stylistically, materially, the world is open to us. Freedom of expression is integral to art today. Husain is 93, he needs to be allowed to come back. Let him be.”