Excerpt:
...The art world of the last
century produced some giant figures whose influence
and achievement rightly made them legends in their own
time. As the century progressed such personalities as
Picasso, Matisse, Dali, Ernst and Dubuffet were unfortunately
lost to us. It is hard today to find a figure of any
real stature in the world of contemporary art and we
are left with artists of immense commercial success
but little lasting achievement; those on the cutting
edge of fashion and trend whose works have an appeal
that is distinctly temporary, at times even shallow
or deliberately obscure.
Where are the great pioneering
figures comparable to those of the last century?
Certainly not in the world of mainstream contemporary
art. We then come to the extraordinary phenomenon known
as Nek Chand Saini. Some call him a saint or prophet,
and certainly his spirituality is a powerful aspect
of his presence, as anyone who has met him would testify.
Others simply refer to him as a self-taught genius whose
use of spatial relationships on such a massive scale
could compete with the greatest of architects, whose
giant waterfall sculptures are outstanding achievements
of innovative engineering, and whose thousands of sculptures
of human figures, creatures, even trees, capture the
sublime serenity of perfect form.