The quotient of ‘modern’ in Indian art has woven itself around some very potent and receptive expositions. Tracing a transverse path through the delicate transition from the pre to post-Independence periods, TAKE on art focuses on the period of 1950-60s. Aware that such a gesture would be akin to opening up a virtual Pandora’s box, considering the innumerable speculations and subjective interpretations of what and who really constitute the ‘Indian Modern’, TAKE on art bravely wants to ‘take’ the plunge. The plunge into the era, signaled by the desire for new beginnings or a mythical tabula rasa, converges with questions regarding the continuity of artistic traditions on one hand, and the embarkation on a cultural challenge, to stake claim to the empty space previously occupied by the colonial-anti-colonial position with regard to the other. An act like this, purports not only to take cognizance of the zeitgeist of the time but also of the art historical impulse.
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This brief essay on India’s National Gallery of Modern Art traces the early years of the institution from when it was set up in 1954. It was an important site for the art world as much as for the newly independent nation state declaring its commitment to modernity.
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The Calcutta Group was an artist’s collective that came together in 1943. From the early phase of the modern in Indian art this collective was involved in negotiating the issue of identifying a visual language (mostly in formal/ stylistic terms) that would neither succumb to the art school brand academism nor the prevalent alternative of the so-called ‘Bengal School’ patterns.
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Year 2010: Arguably the art capital of the country,Delhi has a plethora of art institutions. Artists studios,commercial galleries and even public spaces like malls now function as the locus of art making and display.
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Ram Kinkar Baij, a towering figure excavated the concerns of a world inhabited by people who at that point in Indian history lived in luminal spaces.
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It is refreshingly educativeto read art criticism that isalmost half a century old.Richard Bartholomew’scatalogue essay in 1961 onRam Kumar’s paintingsreveals the extent to whichthe late critic puts himselfinto the picture. The essayalmost reads like a letterto the painter—both in itsrather personal tone andslightly rambling and self indulgentnature.
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