Nek Chand, the artist, The Rock Garden, Chandigarh, Punjab.
The story goes that back in the 50s (or late 40s) when Chandigarh was being built, and the villages where it would be built were being demolished, an inspector or roads, started collecting the waste and began creating forms on a patch of unused land.
"In his spare time, Chand began collecting materials from demolition sites around the city. He recycled these materials into his own vision of the divine kingdom of Sukrani, choosing a gorge in a forest near Sukhna Lake for his work. The gorge had been designated as a land conservancy, a forest buffer established in 1902 that nothing could be built on. Chand’s work was illegal, but he was able to hide it for eighteen years before it was discovered by the authorities in 1975. By this time, it had grown into a twelve-acre complex of interlinked courtyards, each filled with hundreds of pottery-covered concrete sculptures of dancers, musicians, and animals.
His work was in serious danger of being demolished, but he was able to get public opinion on his side, and in 1976 the park was inaugurated as a public space. Nek Chand was given a salary, a title ("Sub-Divisional Engineer, Rock Garden"), and a workforce of 50 laborers so that he could concentrate full-time on his work. It even appeared on an Indian stamp in 1983. The Rock Garden is still made out of recycled materials; and with the government’s help, Chand was able to set up collection centers around the city for waste, especially rags and broken ceramics.
When Chand left the country on a lecture tour in 1996, the city withdrew its funding, and vandals attacked the park. The Rock Garden Society took over the administration and upkeep of this unique visionary environment. The garden is visited by over five thousand people daily, with a total of more than twelve million visitors since its inception."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nek_Chand
See also the Nek Chand foundation.
and see also Chandigarh
In the West, it has been a trend to create art from used materials for several decades but Chand was doing it over half a century ago, probably as the only way to access materials, rather than out of any progressive desire to save the planet. However, it's a model that india, as it advances as a modern economy, is going to desperately need.
People like to discuss whether Chand was an innovator or a borrower of ideas from Europe's modern artists - you can see resemblances to the work of Gaudi and Henry Moore. I don't really care about this. What's more interesting to me is that these inveterate makers pop up all over the world and when there is little access to formal art education, the ones who really can't help themselves go ahead and create stuff. It's a drive some people have.
Of the above works my favourites are the smaller forms made from lumps of old building materials.
Next entry, I will put up pictures that show the architecture of the park itself.
