No artist ready to paint murals on Bangalore’s walls

Not even one artist or agency is interested in painting murals on city’s walls anymore; the city corporation’s tender to invite bids for the same drew no response.

The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) chief engineer, multi-purpose engineering department, Chandrashekar, confirmed this sorry state of affairs. He said they did not know why nobody had shown interest in the job. Unperturbed by the no-show, the BBMP has called for tenders again and is hoping that artists will apply this time, he said. He claimed that a few artists had approached him, asking about the work.

Although the BBMP is clueless about why the artists are staying away from work, sources said it was because of “various conditions and pressure”.

According to the source, in 2010, 32 artists, along with their assistants, had taken up the task of beautifying the city’s walls and maintaining them for a year. The project had cost Rs75 lakh.

Most of the paintings were in the west zone. The project could not cover the entire city, owing to complaints from public, which questioned the wisdom of spending such a huge sum on cosmetic changes when the roads themselves were in bad condition.

Nevertheless, the project had achieved its task of providing employment to local artists for a year, the source said. This time, the BBMP has kept the duration of the project as two years. Also, it aims to cover the entire city, the source informed. The source added that several important tourism places in the state could not find their place on city’s walls the previous time but this time there would be no such lapse.

Beautiful city
It was the former BBMP commissioner, Bharat Lal Meena, who had decided to deck up the boundary walls along important roads with murals. Selected walls along some most-frequented roads are now adorned with the pictures of tourist spots, Kannada icons, picturesque scenes, animals and a host of other images.

The main motivation behind painting the walls was to discourage people from putting up posters on them. Also, Meena had said that after a drive on the city’s roads, people from other states who come to the city for a visit should get a taste of the state’s rich culture and heritage. That it would give employment to local artists was another incentive.

Although the paintings do make the walls look beautiful, they have not entirely discouraged people from putting up posters on them and, thus, defacing them. The source said more than 60 cases have been lodged in various police stations against film producers for pasting posters on public walls, although no action has been taken.