The Figure and the Apparition: Mochu’s Reading of K. Ramanujam

K. Ramanujam—an artist from the Cholamandal Artists’ Village in Chennai, Tamil Nadu—was one of the pioneering figures in the Madras Movement. Inspired by traditional indigenous drawing practices and regional craft techniques that involved heavily detailed representation with elements of stylistic repetition, Ramanujam’s work delved into forms of abstraction and figuration. Not much is available about him, shrouding his life in mystery. A contemporary art project, by Delhi-based artist Mochu, explores Ramanujam’s created world: At the facade we could see him no more... (2017) offers a speculative textual accompaniment to the video essay A Gathering at the Carnival Shop (2015). Following Mochu’s treatment of the subject, the story takes place somewhere between fact and fiction.

The documentary A Gathering at the Carnival Shop ties together archival material in the form of photographs and drawings with interviews of close contemporaries and comrades of Ramanujam. Taking the form of a video essay, the film also includes animation, a recreation of Cholamandal’s natural landscape as it would have been in the 1960s—when the artist village was set up—along with contemporary footage of its working quarters. Much of Ramanujam’s original work has been lost or dispersed across the globe and invariably difficult to locate or access, only to be recalled as scans or memories. Stories, memories and other disparate material form the basis of this speculative telling of Ramanujam’s life.

The otherworldly quality of the story is established at the beginning of the film as the Cholamandal seascape is shown reflecting unto itself: a boat appears to be upside down, before righting itself. In a telephonic conversation, Mochu told me that his treatment of Ramanujam’s life and material allows for the “…future to enter.” In the absence of original material and documentation, there is an alternative representational treatment through speculation. His use of the digital apparatus—through animations, scans and screengrabs—allows for resurrection, where the artist’s life occupies a space of mythopoesis or myth-making.

An example of this is a text in the film which refers to a particular photograph in which Ramanujam, in his omnipresent black hat, is depicted painting. In the interviews, there is mention of this particular image of the artist. The text itself presents Mochu’s journey in search of the artist, saying that "...by the time the hat was found, the artist himself was lost." This lost or fictional photograph speaks to the several absences in the documentation and material around Ramanujam’s life. The black hat often appears in Ramanujam’s paintings to signify the author/artist. In this manner, it often acts as a stand-in for the artist himself, a motif used by Mochu in the film, as if Ramanujam himself were appearing as these memories are rehashed.

One wonders if the particular photograph ever existed in material form, or if it is located within memories of a bygone time. The photographic occurrence stretches across time, as the fantastical nature of Ramanujam’s drawings are translated into the world that he created and inhabited. Existing somewhere between fact and fiction, they cross the Western dichotomy of “real” and “unreal,” as is often collapsed in cultural morphology.

Ramanujam is said to have led the life of an outsider. He suffered from debilitating conditions since childhood such as learning difficulties and a stammer, and in adulthood, depression and possible schizophrenia. Resisting the “dominant narrative,” as Mochu described it, the film does not touch upon the fact that he committed suicide in 1973 by ingesting a form of poison. In the video essay, the nature of his death is not mentioned. Instead, his contemporaries speak of the fatal night as they had witnessed it, allowing for an alternative approach to the biography. They speak of a local black dog named Karuppan who had died on the same night as the artist. Eerily, the last drawing made by Ramanujam was a black dog with its head replaced by the artist’s own, a “premonition” within the narrated story. In this way, Mochu manages to conjure up Ramanujam through his drawings, paintings and friends’ memories.

All images from A Gathering at the Carnival Shop by Mochu. 2015. Images courtesy of the artist.