HYDERABAD: Public aesthetics generally refers to the arrangement of the elements of a city, a combination of both beauty and function. But Hyderabad is a scattered museum. There is art. But, it’s all scattered.
Although street art is growing in the city, the aesthetic beauty is marred by various factors in public spaces. This is all thanks to lack of planning on part of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation. For the most part, public aesthetics in Hyderabad are a result of charity.
"Most of the public art work we see in the city is the expression of artists themselves. They make it for us, for free. We allow them to express everything they wish, except for anything adverse to our culture," said an official from GHMC. "The art work in the city is unparalleled because the artists are different. It is incomplete because artists use their own funds," the official said.
Flyovers in the city are intermittently decorated with vertical gardens and partially with murals. In between are advertisements and blank pillars. “For a viewer, it is like a distorted canvas, a distraction,” Vice-Chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru Architecture and Fine Arts University, Kavita Rao said. “If there is no synchrony in the art works, for instance, under the flyovers, people cannot actually appreciate it instinctively,” she said.
The art works near Masab Tank flyover, Greenlands flyover, are now curtained by vertical gardens. "GHMC is vandalising the city. They do not have an aesthetic sense. They use flashy, distracting colours on the streets which do not please the eye. According to them, flashy neon paint on tree trunks in areas like HiTec city is beautiful. They have to understand what fits in, and how it is positioned, otherwise, no matter how good the work is, it turns into a distraction," a professor from the JNAFAU who wished to stay anonymous, said.
Recently, GHMC’s south zone commissioner, Hari Chandana consulted JNAFAU, to make art works that suit the surroundings of the IT Corridor. "Every year, we have a competition at MS Maqta, a locality in Khairatabad. Artists from across India, even abroad, come there for this competition, they then beautify the city with their expression," said Hari Chandana.
"Even otherwise, GHMC is working on beautification of flyovers, with vertical gardens, murals. A French artist had painted four pillars at the HiTec City flyover, during the Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2017. Now, we are planning to beautify the Gachibowli flyover," she added.