He may have an extensive art collection, but Jaiveer Johal’s advice for those interested in buying art is to exercise restraint. “Don’t be afraid to live with an empty wall,” he told Artsy—if the work you’re considering purchasing is the right fit, it will stay with you for a while before you purchase it, he cautions.
Before Johal amassed a compelling art collection of his own, he had no clear idea of where his fascination with objects would lead him. He was drawn to their quiet pull long before he had the words to describe it.
His relationship with art began when he was young and began paying attention to his surroundings: to form, feeling, and memory. With time, his collection came to embody the spirit of his era, gathering works by late 20th-century Indian artists as they responded to the fast-changing world around them. In doing so, he not only collected artworks—he developed an evolving narrative of his time.
Johal grew up in New Delhi, where landmarks such as The National Museum, Safdarjung's Tomb, and the Jantar Mantar temple were a stone’s throw away from his childhood home. Today, he is based in Chennai, India, and works as a director at Johal Logistics Group, one of India’s leading providers of outbound logistics and specialist manpower services for the Heavy Commercial Vehicle (HCV) industry.
Growing up during the onset of India’s economic liberalization in the 1990s, Johal’s early years unfolded at a slower pace. “There were very few entertainment options,” he said, recalling regular visits to the National Museum and the National Gallery of Modern Art as a child.
This led to a formative moment when he encountered the works of Bhupen Khakhar—one of the first Indian artists to come out as queer in the 1980s, known for his radical depictions of homosexuality, illness, and mortality. “I remember the first time I came across Bhupen’s work,” Johal recalled. “I don't think I even realized I was queer when I came across his work.”
This experience ignited a curiosity that guided his early approach to art. “We were brought up quite strictly in terms of access to money for kids,” he explained. He bought books about art that were “much more advanced” than he could understand at the time, but he “found the pictures attractive.”
Johal insists collecting was never the goal—it was a consequence of the curiosity he fostered at this young age. “I collected things that I could afford earlier on in my career,” he said. “I didn't become a collector starting out thinking I’m going to be a collector.”
Over time, those measured beginnings gave way to a deeper, more involved passion. “I used to collect a fair bit of silver, and a lot of prints, especially maps, which I find deeply underrated as a collecting category,” he said. “Antiquities are my first love.”
His path into art collecting began through auctions. This marked the early phase when he began to consider himself a serious art collector, around 2017–18. “In my mind, a collector is someone who buys work even when there’s no space left to hang it,” he said. The first piece he brought home from an auction was a set of drawings by the influential painter Jogen Chowdhury. Other formative additions to his collection have included works by major Indian artists including G.Ravinder Reddy, M.F. Husain, and Krishen Khanna.
Ultimately, Johal resists the notion of collecting as a formulaic system. “It’s not a mediated process in that sense. I think it’s a palimpsest of processes: The views [of others], what your interactions are, and what a gallerist is saying,” he said. “You have to listen, but you also have to cut out the noise.”
Today, his collection ranges from artists of the post-Partition era to those working with emerging technologies. Among his works is a painting by Atul Dodiya, created in quiet reflection after hearing of the artist Tyeb Mehta’s passing in 2009. Johal’s collection broadens further through works by names such as Christopher Kulendran Thomas, a Sri Lankan artist of Tamil descent, whose technology-infused abstractions are shaped through collaborations with architects, writers, musicians, and activists.
While Johal’s collection is not defined by identity, it is inseparable from his own.
“My collection is not a queer collection in that sense,” he said. “But it’s not not a queer collection. It mediates one’s life. You have a queer eye. You look at things that appeal to you, and that’s part of your personality—your personhood.”
Take, for instance, his deep connection to “Home is a Foreign Place” (1999), a series by the late Indian artist Zarina, known for her restrained visual language that quietly echoes themes of displacement and longing. In the work, she weaves her mother tongue, Urdu, with memories of homes lost to the 1947 Partition, her husband’s moves, and eviction—capturing a poignant, enduring longing for home that quietly haunts a life spent in transit. “Zarina, in a traditional sense, is not queer at all,” he said. “But she speaks to exiles of the mind, exile of the body. Of displacement and longing—both mental and physical. That sense of being in internal exile, of home being a foreign place—that’s a very queer subject matter.”
Johal understands that art can sometimes feel inaccessible, but he reiterates that one must remember that art professionals are there to be approached. “The person on the other end is only doing it because they are passionate about the art,” he said. There also has to be a genuine desire for engagement from audiences, too. People need to start living with art, he added, not just decorating with it.
Art may demand attention and effort, but he suggests that is where meaning begins: not in instant recognition, but in the slow, unguarded act of looking. “Trust your eyes,” he encourages.
from Artsy News https://ift.tt/3ucxMLq
No comments:
Post a Comment