The Thing Itself

Arjun Appadurai examines the aesthetic life of objects and reveals how their status and behaviour changes with altering circulation patterns and socio-political contexts.

- Arjun Appadurai

Gopal MS. A vintage gramophone turntable for sale in Chor Bazaar, Mumbai. Photograph. 2019. Image courtesy of the artist.

Objects found in flea markets are often carriers of private memories. On the streets of Chor Bazaar, Mumbai's famous flea market, junk, in the form of discarded furniture, old and new electronic gadgets, faded photographs, new and antique gramophones, private diaries, and even stacks of letters, get sold. As commodities, these items possess different kinds of symbolic value.

THIS ESSAY IS TAKEN FROM THE OBJECT ISSUE OF ART INDIA VOLUME X, ISSUE III, 2005.

I. Profusion

In India, we are surrounded by things. And all things in India have a social life. The idea of objects having a social life is a conceit, I coined in 1986 in a collection of essays, which was titled, The Social Life of Things. Since then, I have continued to be engaged with the idea that persons and things are not radically distinct categories, and that the transactions that surround things are invested with the properties of social relations. Thus, today's gift is tomorrow's commodity. Yesterday's object is tomorrow's found art object. Today's art object is tomorrow's junk. And yesterday's junk is tomorrow's heirloom.

Furthermore, any and all things can make the journey from commodity to singularity and back. Slaves, once sold as chattel, can become gradually humanized, personified and re-enchanted by the investiture of humanity. But they can also be re-commoditized, turned once again into mere bodies or tools, put back in the marketplace, available for a price, dumped into the world of mere things.

Chirodeep Chaudhuri. Vintage typewriter and booklet, Chor Bazaar, Mumbai. Photograph. 8"x 12". 2020. Image courtesy of the artist.