| milwaukee's online art review |
An American in India
By Judith Ann Moriarty
You will soon have the opportunity to view two
exhibits (at the Haggerty Museum of Art and at Grava
Gallery) by Waswo X. Waswo. Those exhibits will be
reviewed in a future issue of susceptibletoimages, in
the meantime here’s what it’s like to be an American
in India...
Waswo X. Waswo lives abroad these days but still
finds himself yearning for a bacon/gorgonzola
cheeseburger or a simple hamburger with malt and
fries which he used to enjoy at the Brady Street
Pharmacy. In 2004, he moved his father, George,
(now 90-years-young), and his partner, Thomas
Livieri, to India. They call it home, a far cry from the
old Miller Tavern building they occupied during their
Milwaukee days.
But prior to the move, Waswo “sipped” India as
one would sip a fine Chai. His initial 1993 visit was
brief, and six years passed before he returned to
spend a month. In the fall of 2000, he extended
his visits to six months, repeating the trek annually
until the final move four years later. A world
traveler (Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, and
Europe, where he studied at The Institute for
Contemporary Photography in Florence), Waswo
says at least some of the seeds planted for his
move to India sprouted from his early familiarity
with tiny black photographs taken when his dad
served in India and China during WWII. “They
stimulated my fascination for Asia, and India in
particular,” says the 54-year-old artist. "Home
healthcare is also readily available and
inexpensive, a practical reason to relocate, as my
dad’s health declines.”
“Being an American artist in India is a double-
edged sword,” he says. “On the one hand you do
get lots of attention and curiosity, it’s fairly easy to
get press and my work has been featured in
publications which have millions of readers.”
At times, the sword’s other edge makes him feel
that he is a “perpetual outsider.” People in the
Indian art community claim to his face that, “a
foreigner can never photograph India properly.”
He sees this as an incredibly closed attitude, but
continues to forge ahead in his mission to blur
cultural boundaries. Two distinct bodies of his
work will be exhibited at the Haggerty Museum of
Art (June 28-Sept. 23) and Grava Gallery (July 13-
Sept. 1).
“Producing art in India presents its own dilemmas,”
he says. “Archival supplies and papers are
incredibly difficult to find. I’ve made a new
darkroom at my Udaipur studio, but filling it with
the proper chemicals and other supplies is
sometimes nearly impossible.” Add to that the
extreme heat, dust from the desert, insects
nibbling away at papers, and well, you get the drift
of the dilemmas.
Udaipur, in southern Rajasthan, teems with lakes
and palaces, and though remote, it is still on the
tourist map. It’s hotter than hell, so when
temperatures soar, Waswo hides in his one air
conditioned room. Locals in stone-walled “havelis”
beat the heat by watching television and playing
cards. Nighttime is the right time to head to the
lakes, and one such lake (Baldi, a former hunting
preserve for the Maharaja) is indeed exotic and
features half-submerged temples. Imagine you are
a fish, swimming inside these temples (yes, he’s
done that). The problem is, crocodiles dwell at the
far end of the lake. He enjoys it all with his eyes
wide-open.
When the Udaipur weather is unbearable, Waswo
and Livieri flee to their very tiny beach house in
Arambol, Goa, a $45 per month refuge with a small
garden and six coconut palms. However, it’s no
place to be during the monsoon season, when
constant rains make it akin to living in a hot shower.
Udaipur, despite the aforementioned dilemmas,
better suits his artistic life. Like Milwaukee, it is
mid-sized, big enough to be interesting and small
enough to be do-able. He has a 180-degree view
of the old city that embraces the Maharaja’s City
Palace, The Monsoon Palace, and directly below, a
large Muslim neighborhood replete with goats
roaming the streets and the sounds of calls from
nearby mosques. When he’s on the street, kids
and other folks constantly say hello and practice
their English with him. Many of his friends are
Muslims, and not some sort of alien species.
In his Udaipur home/studio he produced the
images for A Studio in Rajasthan, currently being
exhibited at Grava Gallery in the Third Ward. They
are rooted in his personal collection of Indian
studio portraits, popular during the late 19th and
20th century. Several of the background tableaus
were hand painted on linen by Indian craftsmen,
while others were rented, and now and then, he
found himself including goats and chickens in the
imagery. His goal was to make studio portraits of
people who normally wouldn’t have that chance.
Recently, he began working with digital and has
learned he has the very first Epson 2400 printer in
Rajasthan.
A typical day goes something like this: rise at 6am
to sip black tea. Check the e-mail. Twice weekly, a
ride with auto-rickshaw man, Tara, to the barber
for a $1.00 shave, face and head massage, in a
space resembling a community center where chai is
sipped and gossip exchanged. On some days, Tara
tells Waswo that he’s rounded up new models for
the Studio in Rajasthan series…often street beggars
with twisted legs and arms, perhaps because Tara
himself has a leg affected by polio. “I’ve made a lot
of friends through the street beggar crowd,”
Waswo observes, not unkindly. “Some people find
my photographing them to be exploitive, but the
beggars I’ve met have more confidence and pride
in themselves than many a “normal” person. They
really get into the studio portrait photography
event, and suggest their own poses and such.”
At night (the cool time), Waswo and Livieri
generally venture forth, maybe to an Indian
wedding in full swing during the “marriage
season,” or to a restaurant, then on to the MKP
disco filled with mostly young men dancing with
each other. “They aren’t gay,” Waswo says,” in
India it is more okay to dance with a member of the
same sex than it is to dance with a member of the
opposite sex. MKP reminds me of a sleazy little gay
bar back in the U.S.”
It seems clear that because of his efforts to
overcome obstacles, this former UW-Milwaukee
student who partied hard with drugs and booze in
the 70s, and narrowly avoided the pit of personal
despair, has survived to thrive as an artist. He
freely admits to thinking like an American, and is
aware of the communication problems associated
with a place where English is only half understood
and Western ideas are often misinterpreted or not
understood at all. A camera can be a great
communicator. In Waswo’s hands, it is.
For The India Poems exhibit at the Haggerty
Museum, curator Annemarie Sawkins has
assembled 32 images culled from Waswo’s 2004
book, India Poems: The Photographs. The images
premiered in India in 2003, at a time when few
foreigners were bothering to exhibit their work.
Waswo says that has changed, and “artists like
Kiki Smith are mounting shows in Bombay!”
Sawkins has thoughtfully selected nine
photographs from the work of Dr. K. L. Kothary, a
famous Gujarati artist. Ever the generous spirit,
Waswo believes the inclusion of Kothary’s work
will “make for interesting comparisons and
analogies.” The aforementioned book is available
internationally (including France and Denmark), and
locally, at the Haggerty gift shop, Grava Gallery and
Schwartz Bookshops.
And though every effort helps, it would be wrong
to suggest that photographs (even those as
elegant and outstanding as his) totally erase
cultural boundaries. “Some tourists,” Waswo says,
“see a man urinating in the middle of an Udaipur
street, and say they guess in India it is okay to do
that. That’s like a foreigner seeing a drunk
urinating on Brady Street and saying, “I guess in
America, it’s okay to do that.”
As Waswo has learned, India is about more than
raising rice is rural spaces. “Most English-speaking
Indians love American culture: the movies, MTV,
rock music….even rap and hip hop,” he says. “Their
democracy is thriving, but just as in America, there
is wide debate and disagreement on most every
issue.”
“There is at least a moment each day when I still
feel like a tourist myself,” he says. “I am still
learning. I am vastly ignorant, but I now see
friends where once I saw nameless beggars. Now
I see incredible personalities where I once saw
only victims of polio.” Bringing it all to life is what
this artist does best, be he on the road seeking
new subject matter, or in a studio in far away
Rajasthan.
Note: On Memorial Day weekend, an email arrived
from India detailing the death of Waswo’s father,
George. He died peacefully in his sleep in the country
where he served during WWII.
Comments?
Email comments@susceptibletoimages.com
Copyright 2007. Content may not be used or
reproduced without the permission of the author.
By Judith Ann Moriarty
You will soon have the opportunity to view two
exhibits (at the Haggerty Museum of Art and at Grava
Gallery) by Waswo X. Waswo. Those exhibits will be
reviewed in a future issue of susceptibletoimages, in
the meantime here’s what it’s like to be an American
in India...
Waswo X. Waswo lives abroad these days but still
finds himself yearning for a bacon/gorgonzola
cheeseburger or a simple hamburger with malt and
fries which he used to enjoy at the Brady Street
Pharmacy. In 2004, he moved his father, George,
(now 90-years-young), and his partner, Thomas
Livieri, to India. They call it home, a far cry from the
old Miller Tavern building they occupied during their
Milwaukee days.
But prior to the move, Waswo “sipped” India as
one would sip a fine Chai. His initial 1993 visit was
brief, and six years passed before he returned to
spend a month. In the fall of 2000, he extended
his visits to six months, repeating the trek annually
until the final move four years later. A world
traveler (Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, and
Europe, where he studied at The Institute for
Contemporary Photography in Florence), Waswo
says at least some of the seeds planted for his
move to India sprouted from his early familiarity
with tiny black photographs taken when his dad
served in India and China during WWII. “They
stimulated my fascination for Asia, and India in
particular,” says the 54-year-old artist. "Home
healthcare is also readily available and
inexpensive, a practical reason to relocate, as my
dad’s health declines.”
“Being an American artist in India is a double-
edged sword,” he says. “On the one hand you do
get lots of attention and curiosity, it’s fairly easy to
get press and my work has been featured in
publications which have millions of readers.”
At times, the sword’s other edge makes him feel
that he is a “perpetual outsider.” People in the
Indian art community claim to his face that, “a
foreigner can never photograph India properly.”
He sees this as an incredibly closed attitude, but
continues to forge ahead in his mission to blur
cultural boundaries. Two distinct bodies of his
work will be exhibited at the Haggerty Museum of
Art (June 28-Sept. 23) and Grava Gallery (July 13-
Sept. 1).
“Producing art in India presents its own dilemmas,”
he says. “Archival supplies and papers are
incredibly difficult to find. I’ve made a new
darkroom at my Udaipur studio, but filling it with
the proper chemicals and other supplies is
sometimes nearly impossible.” Add to that the
extreme heat, dust from the desert, insects
nibbling away at papers, and well, you get the drift
of the dilemmas.
Udaipur, in southern Rajasthan, teems with lakes
and palaces, and though remote, it is still on the
tourist map. It’s hotter than hell, so when
temperatures soar, Waswo hides in his one air
conditioned room. Locals in stone-walled “havelis”
beat the heat by watching television and playing
cards. Nighttime is the right time to head to the
lakes, and one such lake (Baldi, a former hunting
preserve for the Maharaja) is indeed exotic and
features half-submerged temples. Imagine you are
a fish, swimming inside these temples (yes, he’s
done that). The problem is, crocodiles dwell at the
far end of the lake. He enjoys it all with his eyes
wide-open.
When the Udaipur weather is unbearable, Waswo
and Livieri flee to their very tiny beach house in
Arambol, Goa, a $45 per month refuge with a small
garden and six coconut palms. However, it’s no
place to be during the monsoon season, when
constant rains make it akin to living in a hot shower.
Udaipur, despite the aforementioned dilemmas,
better suits his artistic life. Like Milwaukee, it is
mid-sized, big enough to be interesting and small
enough to be do-able. He has a 180-degree view
of the old city that embraces the Maharaja’s City
Palace, The Monsoon Palace, and directly below, a
large Muslim neighborhood replete with goats
roaming the streets and the sounds of calls from
nearby mosques. When he’s on the street, kids
and other folks constantly say hello and practice
their English with him. Many of his friends are
Muslims, and not some sort of alien species.
In his Udaipur home/studio he produced the
images for A Studio in Rajasthan, currently being
exhibited at Grava Gallery in the Third Ward. They
are rooted in his personal collection of Indian
studio portraits, popular during the late 19th and
20th century. Several of the background tableaus
were hand painted on linen by Indian craftsmen,
while others were rented, and now and then, he
found himself including goats and chickens in the
imagery. His goal was to make studio portraits of
people who normally wouldn’t have that chance.
Recently, he began working with digital and has
learned he has the very first Epson 2400 printer in
Rajasthan.
A typical day goes something like this: rise at 6am
to sip black tea. Check the e-mail. Twice weekly, a
ride with auto-rickshaw man, Tara, to the barber
for a $1.00 shave, face and head massage, in a
space resembling a community center where chai is
sipped and gossip exchanged. On some days, Tara
tells Waswo that he’s rounded up new models for
the Studio in Rajasthan series…often street beggars
with twisted legs and arms, perhaps because Tara
himself has a leg affected by polio. “I’ve made a lot
of friends through the street beggar crowd,”
Waswo observes, not unkindly. “Some people find
my photographing them to be exploitive, but the
beggars I’ve met have more confidence and pride
in themselves than many a “normal” person. They
really get into the studio portrait photography
event, and suggest their own poses and such.”
At night (the cool time), Waswo and Livieri
generally venture forth, maybe to an Indian
wedding in full swing during the “marriage
season,” or to a restaurant, then on to the MKP
disco filled with mostly young men dancing with
each other. “They aren’t gay,” Waswo says,” in
India it is more okay to dance with a member of the
same sex than it is to dance with a member of the
opposite sex. MKP reminds me of a sleazy little gay
bar back in the U.S.”
It seems clear that because of his efforts to
overcome obstacles, this former UW-Milwaukee
student who partied hard with drugs and booze in
the 70s, and narrowly avoided the pit of personal
despair, has survived to thrive as an artist. He
freely admits to thinking like an American, and is
aware of the communication problems associated
with a place where English is only half understood
and Western ideas are often misinterpreted or not
understood at all. A camera can be a great
communicator. In Waswo’s hands, it is.
For The India Poems exhibit at the Haggerty
Museum, curator Annemarie Sawkins has
assembled 32 images culled from Waswo’s 2004
book, India Poems: The Photographs. The images
premiered in India in 2003, at a time when few
foreigners were bothering to exhibit their work.
Waswo says that has changed, and “artists like
Kiki Smith are mounting shows in Bombay!”
Sawkins has thoughtfully selected nine
photographs from the work of Dr. K. L. Kothary, a
famous Gujarati artist. Ever the generous spirit,
Waswo believes the inclusion of Kothary’s work
will “make for interesting comparisons and
analogies.” The aforementioned book is available
internationally (including France and Denmark), and
locally, at the Haggerty gift shop, Grava Gallery and
Schwartz Bookshops.
And though every effort helps, it would be wrong
to suggest that photographs (even those as
elegant and outstanding as his) totally erase
cultural boundaries. “Some tourists,” Waswo says,
“see a man urinating in the middle of an Udaipur
street, and say they guess in India it is okay to do
that. That’s like a foreigner seeing a drunk
urinating on Brady Street and saying, “I guess in
America, it’s okay to do that.”
As Waswo has learned, India is about more than
raising rice is rural spaces. “Most English-speaking
Indians love American culture: the movies, MTV,
rock music….even rap and hip hop,” he says. “Their
democracy is thriving, but just as in America, there
is wide debate and disagreement on most every
issue.”
“There is at least a moment each day when I still
feel like a tourist myself,” he says. “I am still
learning. I am vastly ignorant, but I now see
friends where once I saw nameless beggars. Now
I see incredible personalities where I once saw
only victims of polio.” Bringing it all to life is what
this artist does best, be he on the road seeking
new subject matter, or in a studio in far away
Rajasthan.
Note: On Memorial Day weekend, an email arrived
from India detailing the death of Waswo’s father,
George. He died peacefully in his sleep in the country
where he served during WWII.
Comments?
Email comments@susceptibletoimages.com
Copyright 2007. Content may not be used or
reproduced without the permission of the author.
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| EyeSpy June 19-26 Temporary Contemporary opens Friday India Poems: The Photographs of Milwaukee Artist Waswo X. Waswo at the Haggerty And more... |
| Photograph by Waswo X. Waswo which will be part of The India Poems exhibition at the Haggerty Museum of Art. |
| Waswo X. Waswo, A Boy from the Band. From the exhibition, A Studio in Rajasthan, Grava Gallery, Milwaukee. |
| Waswo X. Waswo working in his studio in Rajasthan, India. Photograph by his assistant, M. Srinivas Rao. Courtesy Waswo X. Waswo. |