Iranna made a donkey and turned it on one side at the recently held India Art Summit. Nobody quite understood what Iranna tried to convey. More importantly, none could figure out why this Donkey should be called art. The works was not made by Iranna. Actually Iranna had order-made the donkey from a New Delhi based mannequin makers. He did not even see the donkey before it was brought to Art Fair Ground. Yet Iranna claims that the donkey is made by him. Is he trying to make others donkeys as well? Apparently that is what it seemed to be.

India Art Summit had many such artworks displayed. Ved Gupta displayed dogs, again custom-made by manufacturers. Many other artists also did similar things.
The problem is Indian Art still lags behind Europe even today. The Europeans had experimented with such shock arts at least twenty years back. In England today, Tracy Emin is considered passe. Shock artists do not draw any attention. Entire Europe is again going back to fundamental thinking in art and beyond shock. Artists are again devoting time to inventing new genres, styles, narratives and renderings. In the past few years Europe has seen the emergence of magic realism, new surrealism, strucknon art, superflat art, posse-ism. But in India, we are still doing installations and readymades. 

Aping west is bad but aping the west of yesterday is absolutely senseless. Iranna has spent a lot of money in erecting the donkey. We pray that some other donkey buys it so that Iranna can get back his money.