Peter Nagy is an artist and co-founder, with Alan Belcher, of Nature Morte, one of more successful galleries in New York’s East Village during the 80s. Anyone not dead, tied down by cheap rent or enslaved to a job fl ed the Big Apple in the early 90’s after the city collapsed into a miasma of corruption and crack. Peter went to New Dehli, and eventually reopened Nature Morte there. Afterart News recently asked him a few questions about life after the East Village. Here’s what he has to tell us.
fterart news: You say Delhi reminds you of the early 80’s in NYC. What makes you say that? It’s hard to imagine the same potent mix of drugs, sex, music, art and money.
Peter Nagy: The Indian art scene is reminiscent of that of NY in the 1980’s as it is, at present, full of potential energy and artists are, in general, quite optimistic. In many ways, a scene that accommodates photography, video, installation and experimental mediums has only coalesced in the past four to fi ve years and both young artists and more established ones are taking advantage of the opportunities currently available to them. Of course, one can’t compare the struggling and nascent market of here to that gonzo animal we knew in NYC twenty years ago.
AAN: In some ways all art, like politics, is local. Do you ever show artists from Europe or the States? How aware/infl uenced are Indian artists by western culture? Do they care what goes on over here?
PN: This segues nicely into your second question. India as a whole has opened itself up to the world in the past decade, the decade that I have lived here. This means in Delhi we can order in Domino’s pizza, have the BBC, CNN and WWF on television, drive Fords and BMWs and shop at Bennetton (all for better and for worse). Indian artists have greater access to information of what is happening around the world, though in terms of contemporary art this mostly comes through the Internet. The younger generation is more clued in to what is happening in different parts of the world, more attuned to the possibilities within a globalizing art scene. But, mind you, their focus may be just as much on what is going on in other parts of Asia or in Australia as it is on New York and Europe. We’ve been deluged by foreign curators (mostly European though not exclusively) coming to India in the past few years and we’re starting to see contemporary dealers sniff around. I’ve shown some work by New York artists here in group shows and have worked on some projects with European artists, but as the market does not accommodate work by non-Indian artists its rather diffi cult to rationalize and afford.
AAN: What made you go to Delhi when you left NYC? Did you intend to reopen Nature Morte when you went there?
PN: I fi rst visited India in 1990 as a tourist and then came to live here, for a year, in 1992. I was motivated by a combination of the crash of the art-market in the early 90s and the desire to both live in a foreign country (having grown up in the NY metropolitan area) and delve deeper into another culture. When I closed Nature Morte in New York in 1988 I thought that I would open it again somewhere else, basically because I am not interested in teaching and am more inclined towards curating and dealing. As I stayed on (as they say) in India, I became familiar with its contemporary art scene and was seeing a lot of interesting work and knew that it was not being exhibited in commercial galleries. Frankly, it took a guy from New York to see the potential on an international scale for much of this art and after five years of slogging away and busting my butt I’m glad to say its starting to pay off.
AAN: Are there other ex-NewYorkers around? Do people find you? Do you ever get over to Madras to see F. Clemente? I ask because his Hanuman Books were published over there. Maybe they still are.
PN: Love Madras, but don’t go there to see Mr. Clemente. Actually, he’s not well thought of in the Indian art scene. He’s seen as someone who took from India and never gave anything back, an Orientalist who wants to keep India as the mystical, exotic Other and never interacts with its contemporary realities. Delhi is a city the size of New York and, being the capital, has a lively international cultural life and a chunk of my audience at the gallery comes from foreigners either in diplomatic service or connected to the press.
AAN: Do you sometimes get the feeling in Dehli that you are seeing Western culture through some strange filter?
PN: Actually, it’s the reverse in the sense that the Western World, and New York City especially, are becoming increasingly Asianized and more like India. India is the future in many ways: wars are already being fought over water not oil; the post-modern West is catching up with Indian attributes of hybridity, complexity and contradiction; much of Indian cities look to be already deconstructed and we move through a synthesis of the past, present and future which is not unlike Blade Runner.
Interview by Richard Dailey.
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