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The Independent
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Poet accuses acclaimed artist of using his work without consent: ‘Not solidarity, this is theft'
At the height of the protests against India's controversial citizenship law in 2020, when Aamir Aziz first recited his poem Sab Yaad Rakha Jayega –Everything Will Be Remembered – it became a rallying cry to remember, resist, and bear witness. About five years later, the poem is at the centre of another kind of reckoning, one that raises questions about artistic ownership, ethics and consent: Aziz alleges lines from his poem were used without permission, credit, or compensation by acclaimed artist Anita Dube in a gallery exhibition. In a series of posts on 20 April, the day after Dube's solo exhibition concluded at the Vadehra Art Gallery in Delhi, Aziz accused the artist of using his poem 'without my knowledge, consent, credit, or compensation'. The poet, based in Mumbai, said he was alerted to the poem's unauthorised use on 18 March by a friend who noticed his words stitched into a work on display at Dube's exhibition. 'That was the first time I learned Anita Dube had taken my poem and turned it into her art,' he posted. 'When I confronted her, she made it seem normal, like lifting a living poet's work, branding it into her own and selling it in elite galleries for lakhs of rupees was normal.' Aziz first performed his poem in early 2020 during nationwide protests against the then newly enacted citizenship law and the proposed National Register of Citizens, legislation seen as targeting the country's Muslim minority. Sab Yaad Rakha Jayega quickly became emblematic of the resistance, resonating alongside Faiz Ahmed Faiz's Hum Dekhenge and Varun Grover's Hum Kagaz Nahi Dikhayenge. The poem appeared everywhere, from placards at Shaheen Bagh, a major site of the protests in Delhi, to a speech by Pink Floyd's Roger Waters at a pro-democracy rally in London. Dube's work has always been political. The feminist artist is known for conceptual art that delves into themes of power, identity and resistance. Her recent show at Vadehra included works referencing political and social revolutionaries like Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr and Dr BR Ambedkar, and carrying Aziz's lines. One piece was even titled After Aamir Aziz. 'Let's be clear: if someone holds my poem on a placard at a protest, I stand with them. But this is not that. This is my poem, written in velvet cloth, carved in wood, hung in a commercial white cube, renamed, rebranded, and resold at an enormous price without telling me,' Aziz wrote. 'This is not solidarity. This is theft. This is erasure.' Aziz claimed one of Dube's pieces was retitled after his legal team sent a notice, though he didn't specify which one. He also said Dube had been profiting off his poetry for years, referencing another work from 2023 which he claimed drew from the same poem without his knowledge. In a statement to The Independent, Dube acknowledged 'an ethical lapse' in not obtaining Aziz's consent. 'As a visual artist I work with materials that I love, that become means to critically comment, and the intent of quoting words from Aamir Aziz's poem was to celebrate them,' she said. 'I realise that I made an ethical lapse in only giving credit but not checking with Aamir before using words from his poem,' she added. 'However I reached out and called him, apologised and offered to correct this by remuneration. Aamir instead chose to send a legal notice, and then I had to go to a lawyer as well.' As to the allegation of seeking to monetise Aziz's poem, Dube said she 'immediately put the works not for sale'. I hope to resolve this issue in a fair manner,' Aziz, however, maintained that the credit was not clearly visible to the public and that the gallery had initially refused to take down the works. 'I have sent legal notices, demanded accountability. In return: silence, half-truths, and insulting offers,' he said. The Vadehra Art Gallery said they had been in touch with Aziz and his representatives for over a month. 'This is a situation that we have taken very seriously. We immediately ensured that the works Aamir Aziz has concerns with were not offered for sale. We hope that the discussions that are ongoing between Aamir Aziz and Anita Dube can be resolved in an amicable and constructive manner,' it said in a statement. The gallery's director, Roshini Vadehra, told The Independent the wall text 'thanking Aamir Aziz was added as soon as he expressed concern', although 'credit was always given to him in the artwork captions'. The title of the piece After Aamir Aziz wasn't changed in response to the poet's legal demand, she claimed. It 'was named that from the beginning'. Vadehra acknowledged that Dube's works were meant for sale but were 'declared not for sale as soon as Aamir expressed concerns'. Asked about the gallery's protocol for exhibiting art using creative work from other people, Vadehra admitted a 'lapse'. 'We work closely with the literary world. Writers from all over the world are close associates of the gallery,' she said. 'This was a lapse in this case. Hopefully a fair and amicable resolution will be reached.' In the art world, the incident has raised uncomfortable questions, not only about credit and consent but the broader, more nuanced issue of political resistance becoming an aesthetic commodity. 'A politically aware and conscious artist like Anita should have been sensitive to the ethics of copyright,' said Alka Pande, a curator at Visual Arts Gallery. 'Borrowing or collaborating, particularly when working with a private gallery where the works are available for sale, deepen the gravity of ethical issues involved. This should not be taken lightly,' she said. 'I am glad Aamir Aziz raised his voice and made Anita acknowledge her unethical lapse. I sincerely hope this episode will lead to greater caution amongst the visual artist community as there is in the literary world, to copyright issues.' Hussain Haidry, poet, lyricist and screenwriter, noted that works like Dube's could hinge entirely on the power of borrowed words. 'The artwork becomes a symbol of resistance because of the poem. It doesn't become meaningful because of the velvet, or the materials used,' he said. 'It's the words that give it a political context, a particular social currency, and even a saleability among the progressive elite.' The artist's intent, Haidry argued, didn't erase the effect. 'To call it an 'ethical lapse' is just completely diluting the gravity of the legal offence committed over here. What this kind of appropriation does is that it defangs the voice of the oppressed. In its original form, the poem has the power to challenge and convert minds. This gallery setting makes it palatable, convenient and toothless.' In her statement, Dube invoked the framework of a world of 'fellow-traveller solidarities' and 'Copy Left' where ideas were freely exchanged in the spirit of political kinship. But as many pointed out, that vision could not exist without consent or an honest reckoning of how power moved through creative economies. Author and cultural commentator Anurag Minus Verma described it as akin to aesthetic tourism, where privileged artists mined marginalised experiences for borrowed meaning and market value. 'They turn to marginalised cultures like tourists with a camera and a foreign grant, seeking stories that have already survived a thousand retellings without their help,' he said. 'The culture is readymade, the struggle pre-curated, the grief already poetic, and there is a market. All one has to do is arrive late, document it with the gaze of a saviour, reframe it in neutral tones, and sell it in the marketplace of ideas.'
New York Times
21-03-2025
- Business
- New York Times
At Art Basel Hong Kong, Evidence of a Shifting Art World
The tectonic plates of the art world are always shifting as regions and countries gain or lose market power. An art fair provides useful data about the changes. Think of it as Walt Disney World's 'it's a small world' attraction, but with pricey art for sale. Art Basel Hong Kong, taking place March 28 to 30 in the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center, this year gathers 240 galleries from 42 countries and territories. From the first edition of the fair, in 2013, it was meant to be a hub for Asian art and artists. 'Our goal was to have 50 percent of the galleries with a presence in Asia'— meaning a physical space — 'and now we are exceeding that,' said Vincenzo de Bellis, Art Basel's director of fairs. Even within Asia, there are constant fluctuations in geographic representation. For instance, 24 Japanese galleries are participating this year — 27 if you count international galleries that have a space in Japan — a figure that has been increasing in the past few years. Two very different countries represented at the Hong Kong fair with the same number of galleries headquartered in each country — five — help to map the art world's current dynamics: Belgium and India. The former is small and relatively wealthy, with around 12 million people, and the latter has about 1.4 billion. Though poor per capita, India is a huge economic force. India's total of five galleries reflects an increase of one over last year. Anant Art Gallery (a first-time exhibitor at the fair), Vadehra Art Gallery and Shrine Empire are based in New Delhi; Tarq and Jhaveri Contemporary are both in Mumbai. 'India has a growing art scene, and a growing market is part of that,' de Bellis said, noting that the work of Indian artists is also sprinkled throughout the fair, shown by galleries from around the world. For example, Lisson Gallery of New York will show works by the Indian-born sculptor Anish Kapoor, who lives in London and Venice. Angelle Siyang-Le, the Hong Kong fair's director, lives there and grew up partly in mainland China. She said that history provided some context when it came to India. 'With Hong Kong as a trade hub, we exchanged a lot of culture,' she said. 'India is not super foreign to us.' Roshini Vadehra, of New Delhi's Vadehra Art Gallery, agreed. 'There's certainly some kind of synergy between the Asian communities within the region,' she said. 'It makes it easier to introduce our program.' The gallery — founded by Vadehra's father, Arun — is a stalwart of the fair, having exhibited there in the days before Art Basel bought it, when it was Art HK. Long focused on Indian contemporary makers, it has recently expanded to working more extensively with artists from Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Vadehra's Hong Kong booth this year features around 20 artists, including Zaam Arif of Houston, who is represented by works including the oil 'The Light Falls Away' (2025). Amrita Jhaveri of Jhaveri Contemporary in Mumbai founded the gallery with her sister, Priya, in 2010. They have a reputation for working with 'diasporic voices' from the region, she said. Their fair presentation of around a dozen artists includes the watercolor 'Untitled (The Bird Hunter Series XI)' (2024) by Ali Kazim of Lahore, Pakistan. In the 15 years of operating the gallery, they have seen a 'sea change' in the Indian art market, Jhaveri said, in terms of increased collecting activity within India, as well as local galleries professionalizing their operations. The international response to her program is also different. 'Now we're being courted by all sorts of fairs,' she said. The economic power of India is such that galleries can be selective as far as which fairs, and how many fairs, in which they participate. 'The market being soft in the West doesn't really affect us,' Jhaveri said. 'We can always sell back to our home market.' As Hena Kapadia, the founder of the Tarq gallery in Mumbai, put it, 'It's a good time to be an Indian artist, and a good time to be an Indian gallery.' As Kapadia prepared for Hong Kong, she reflected on the success of February's India Art Fair, which took place in New Delhi. 'There were so many international visitors,' she said. 'There's huge interest all over the world in Indian art.' The Tarq booth in Hong Kong will be a solo show of works by the Mumbai artist Saju Kunhan, who made a series of paintings on recycled teak wood panels that are based on a photographs of his parents' wedding, including '11th May 1980 Wedding Day #1' (2024). Belgium — roughly comparable in size to Switzerland, the home base of Art Basel — may not be ascendant in the way that India is, but it is a steady force to be reckoned with in the art world. The Belgian galleries at the fair include two headquartered in or near Antwerp — Axel Vervoordt Gallery and Tim Van Laere Gallery — and three headquartered in Brussels: Maruani Mercier, Galerie Greta Meert and Xavier Hufkens. (Other international galleries also have spaces in the country.) Although it may be hard to verify, many Belgian dealers and others in the world repeat an article of faith: 'Per square meter, there are more collectors here than anywhere else,' said Tim Van Laere, who also operates a branch of the gallery in Rome. He added that the country's storied art production had something to do with it, from the days of the Flemish masters Jan van Eyck, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Hans Memling and Peter Paul Rubens to later Belgian greats like James Ensor and René Magritte. Van Laere's slate of a dozen artists includes Adrian Ghenie, a Romanian artist who lives in Berlin, represented by the painting 'Impossible Body 5' (2023), and the Antwerp native Ben Sledsens, whose oil 'The Collector' (2024-25) will be on display. 'It's in his DNA,' Van Laere said of Sledsens' connection to the Belgian painting tradition, which he added might be one aspect appreciated by Asian collectors. 'People are crazy for his work,' Van Laere said of his reception at the Hong Kong fair. Laurent Mercier, a co-owner of Maruani Mercier, said his gallery's booth would feature a two person show of works by Jaclyn Conley, who lives in New Haven, Conn., and the New York sculptor Tony Matelli. Conley's oil 'Two Eves' (2024) will be on display along with Matelli's sculpture 'Arrangement' (2025), which looks like an upside-down potted orchid. Maruani Mercier, which also has spaces in the Belgian cities of Knokke and Zaventem, was founded in 1995 with a focus on American painters, but more recently has moved to include more work by African artists from countries such as Nigeria and Ghana. Mercier attributed some of Belgium's collecting mojo to its geography, in that it is within striking distance of art hubs like London, Paris and Amsterdam. 'One dealer told me, 'We're a London gallery, but we have more Belgian collectors than British ones,'' Mercier recalled. According to the Indian galleries showing at the Hong Kong fair, Mercier's take is more than boosterism. 'We have collectors from Belgium — the Europeans buy a lot from us, and there's steady interest at art fairs,' Vadehra said. The cross-pollination underlines the relatively borderless and frictionless quality of the art world, even at a time when nationalism has a hold in many countries. As Vadehra put it, 'This is the circuit we all travel on.'
Yahoo
14-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
NYC school leaders tight-lipped on contingency plans amid threats of federal funding cuts
The leaders of New York City's public school system let slip Thursday that they are not currently acting on any contingency plans amid growing threats to federal funding. The nation's largest school district receives about $2.3 billion in federal funding each year, including more than $1 billion from the U.S. Education Department that President Trump has promised to shutter. Earlier this week, his administration announced mass layoffs as the latest move to wind down the agency. 'At this point, there is not a contingency plan, because we are hopeful we will continue to receive all the funding we deserve from both the federal and state level,' Emma Vadehra, deputy chancellor for operations and finance, said at an annual hearing on the local education budget. The approach was met with criticism from the City Council committee's chairperson, who urged the school system to take precautions, even if a loss of funding does not seem imminent. Plans are reportedly under consideration to move Education Department funding streams under different federal agencies. 'I think we shouldn't have to wait till it happens to be scrambling,' said Education Chairperson Rita Joseph (D-Brooklyn), a former teacher. 'I think we should plan. As educators, we plan. We don't sit and wait for it to happen, and wonder, 'What are we going to do?'' The largest funding stream local schools receive from the federal government is Title I, or financial assistance for schools with high concentrations of poverty. The city receives around $700 million each year through that Education Department program, while other federal agencies pick up the tab for school meals and childcare programs. Overall, federal funding contributes about 5% of the city school system's budget. Vadehra said it is 'hard to know' which funding streams are at greatest risk — but said a local food-purchasing program that has provided $8.4 million over the last couple of years is being cancelled for next year. Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos pushed back against the characterization that the local school system was unprepared. 'It's not necessarily that we're waiting to make a contingency plan,' she said. 'We're having internal conversations around all the possibilities. But we cannot enact on a plan with certainty when there are so many moving pieces … including waiting to see which cuts actually happen from the federal government.' Contributing to the uncertainty is Gov. Hochul's plan to change the state's education funding formula, known as Foundation Aid, which is widely believed to be out of date. One of the tweaks Hochul proposed would result in $350 million less for city schools than they would have otherwise received under the original formula — although they would still receive an overall increase in state funding. 'That reduction from the state is half of our entire Title I allocation from the federal government, right?' Vadehra said. 'Just to put things in perspective here.' Also, on the city level, several education programs created or expanded with federal stimulus dollars during the COVID-19 pandemic were continued with one-year, temporary funding after the emergency aid expired. They, too, are at risk of cuts or cancellations under Mayor Adams' preliminary budget plan, including the city's popular preschool program for 3-year-olds, known as '3-K.' Also on Thursday, city education officials said they want to hire 4,000 more teachers to help principals implement school-level plans to lower class sizes, in accordance with a new state law.
