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India has a really strong cultural influence that attracts artists from all over the world. And when this culture is captured and interpreted by the 'White gaze', debates arise on artistic perceptions, autonomy and authentic representation. Most often you'll find the relationship between artists and the visual manifestations of India become troubled due to this clash of identities, but sometimes born out of it it a charming and almost humorous acceptance of this outsider's perspective.
Waswo X. Waswo is a fine art photographer based in Udaipur, Rajasthan who was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the USA. He studied at the University of Wisconsin and later at Studio Marangoni, the Centre for Contemporary Photography in Florence, Italy. After extensive worldwide travels, he settled in India in 2001. The artist tells AD that it was in India that he first encountered the idea of the 'White gaze' and Orientalism which is a critical concept to describe the West's commonly contemptuous depiction and portrayal of The East as established in Edward W. Said's 1978 book, 'Orientalism'.
Sometimes succumbing and sometimes resisting to the concept, Waswo slowly accepted this character of an 'evil orientalist' even naming his 2011 exhibition 'Confessions of an Evil Orientalist' — a humourous and satirical inquiry into popular stereotypes, allowing the viewer to observe and critique culturally-crafted notions of what is Indian and what is not, exploring the resounding influence of colonialism and perceptions of the foreign in modern India.
Waswo is known for his fruitful, 20-year-long relationship with India and his collaborations with Indian artists; 15 years of which was with the photo hand-colourist Rajesh Soni and 12 years with miniaturist R. Vijay. Rajesh, a local craftsman painted hundreds of Waswo's digital prints and R. Vijay worked with him on miniatures that went on to be published in his books India Poems: The Photographs and Men of Rajasthan among others. He has also been working with miniature painters Chirag Kumawat and Dalpat Jingar more recently.
Waswo's body of work is a mixture of these collaborative painted portraits and miniature paintings in which he is seen as the protagonist; the bumbling foreigner in a suit and fedora trying to make sense of India. His art is equal parts traditional and contemporary as well as sincere and tongue-in-cheek in depicting ethnic expressions. At a time when cultural appropriation is a punishable offence, It makes me revel in the fact that an American man teamed up with Rajasthani artisans to bring about new artworks that innovate on form, style, visual language and thematics, creating a series of works that are remarkably singular but also silly and endearingly hilarious.
