South Asian Contemporary Art in America and Beyond

curated by Dr. Anu Mitra

I am just back from a longish trip to India where I visited museums and arts organizations galore, attended conferences and viewed art that dates to the Gandhara civilization and the Chola period in history. And everything else in between. But it was the art of the last 15 minutes (facetiously put) that boggled my imagination. Art schools and design institutions have popped up by the dozens and it is a new badge of honor to claim that identity anymore: that of artist or design entrepreneur. And while there are a handful of contemporary artists who are recognizable for their artistry, just the sheer volume of India’s population at 1.5 billion suggests that she produces more artists per capita than most countries. The Art Index in India administered by the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad provides detailed perspectives on the contemporary art market in India, who the players are, what the market supports, and such. With this as my guide, I had originally planned to focus on contemporary Indian art—where it is headed; what its focus is; what kind of impact it has in India and in the global marketplace. But the more I read, the more I came to believe that my study would span a book rather than a blog post…and so I made some executive decisions.

I focused my look into contemporary art on Kolkata, my home city in India, and where I return for a visit every year. Again, I was lost in a minute as I started to look around at the unstoppable uprising of artistic talent. And rather than concentrate on the readily recognizable—I looked at two inspiring arts organizations that are doing cutting edge work with contemporary artists in the context of the past. Their virtual offerings will take you places even if you cannot travel there in person.

Naveen Kishore’s Seagull Books (established 1982) is a treasure trove of books on world literature, critical theory, art, film and culture, not only zeroing in on India but on the thought makers of the world. These books draw attention to a worldwide panoply of options where Jean Paul Sartre sits with Carlo Ginzberg, and Venus Khoury-Ghata’s The Postman of Abruzzo is placed alongside Mahasweta Devi’s Mirror of the Darkest Night. The menu is limitless and gives one the sensation that one life is not long enough in which to read all the books on one’s list. Kishore also emphasizes design in the book publishing world: the ways in which publishing can integrate lofty thinking with exquisite looking as a practice.

Housed in maximalist quarters in the Bhawanipur area of Kolkata, Seagull Books is also a clearinghouse for art that is to die for. Much of it is for sale but some of it is Kishore’s own personal collection, never to leave the premises. Layer upon layer, assemblage piece by assemblage piece, Kishore’s aesthetic provides a key into what Indian contemporary art can and does look like. His is a 21 st century mindset—at once all-over, focused, creative, entrepreneurial, justice and peace themed, an and/and construct that is impossible to categorize.

Kishore began life as a lighting designer for the theatre. He says that he came into Seagull Books fortuitously:

“Like everything else in my life things happen. Nothing is static. Nothing is known as “certain”. The imagined can be made “logistics”. This is a theatre-lesson. That and the fact that each part of your doing unveils as you do. . . . The practice is the thing.”

— Naveen Kishore

At some point, Kishore also embarked on his own photography career: “One more hobby. Black and white images. I soon discovered that the darkness I created on stage was “freezable” for eternity through film. Such a delicious entrapment of time . . . What the privilege of being a designer would soon teach me is that no angle of vision was denied to me.

Kishore went on to extensively document female impersonators from Manipuri, Bengali and Punjabi theatre practices. In particular he photographed Chapal Bhaduri, a female impersonator of the Bengali folk theatre, Jatra, in a project entitled Performing the Goddess. Some of these pictures were exhibited as a part of a show titled Woman/Goddess. In 2019 his color images from the Performing the Goddess project were exhibited at the Vancouver Art Gallery as a part of the Moving Still exhibition and subsequently at the Cincinnati Art Museum.

Kishore is the recipient of the Goethe Medal, a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and the 2021 Ottaway Award for the Promotion of International Literature. Recently in 2022 he became the first recipient of the Cesare De Michelis Prize, awarded to a publisher who has distinguished themselves internationally through the development of outstanding publishing projects.

He has recently published his first two books of poems, Knotted Grief and Mother Muse Quintet. Also a product of Kishore’s brainchild are the following organizations.

The Seagull Art Foundation for the Arts, established in 1987

Seagull curates and presents art exhibitions—major retrospectives by senior artists as well as the so-called ‘non-saleable’ aspect or area of an artist’s work, which commercial galleries are reluctant to exhibit. Intervening qualitatively and making a positive difference to the aesthetics of the exhibition, the entire undertaking is a partnership between the artist and the organization.

The only one of its kind -–a multi-faceted arts organization in India, Seagull Foundation for the Arts fulfils the need of the arts community by promoting collaborative and experimental arts activity across and within disciplines; publishing in the arts and culture and media; making available documentation and critical commentary; working with youth through the arts to address issues of social concern.

The Seagull School of Publishing, established in 2012

A three-month course in publishing, run entirely by industry professionals with hands-on training and online interactions with faculty from across the world. Understanding cover design and layouts, copy-editing and proofreading, tips and tricks of sales and marketing and buying and selling rights, across territories and languages. An intense learning experience that will enable graduates to work in publishing anywhere in the world.

History of Peace, established in 2015

A network of educators and members of civil society, the History for Peace project serves as a platform for discussion, debate and the exchange of ideas pertaining to teaching and learning of history for peace and understanding. The website also acts as a repository of resources—academic papers, talks, podcasts and teaching aids. History for Peace conducts an annual conference as well as shorter talks and workshops through the year.

PeaceWorks – a project that works through arts and culture, with young minds, to foster a spirit of peaceful coexistence, mutual respect across differences, and equality resulting in social change. PeaceWorks has worked with scores of students and teachers, in India and across the border with schools in Pakistan—often designing projects that bring the two together and thereby creating a platform that facilitates ‘learning to live with difference’.

PeaceWorks, established in 2002

India’s most respected art company began its journey not as an art gallery but as an art institution right from its very inception, choosing to build up a formidable inventory of works by Indian artists from the nineteenth century onwards. In acquiring artists’ studios and estates, it paid homage to their legacy and created a large pool of twentieth century artists and artworks that, taken together, tell the story of Indian art through iconic exhibitions curated to provide art historical overviews and document India’s tryst with modernism.

DAG Modern, established in 1993

In the almost three decades since DAG’s foundation, the Indian art world has seen far-reaching changes in which the company has played a stellar role. Its exhibitions have brought to the fore important artists neglected through the passage of time. It has documented critical art movements and collectives. New generations of art lovers have been able to reclaim the inheritance of forgotten masters thanks largely to support from DAG through curations at its galleries as well as participation in international art fairs, biennales and other art-related events and collaborations. These include critical alliances with museums and cultural institutions in India and abroad.

At the heart of DAG’s programming is an ongoing research curriculum responsible for lending support to art writers and curators, a rigorous publishing calendar with an impressive library of books that document Indian art history, workshops to engage the public—particularly school children and the specially-abled—in art-related workshops, commissioning of videos and films in relation to artists and their work, and engagements with artists, critics and the art community at large. DAG’s contribution to the understanding and dissemination of Indian art remains without parallel.

An important aspect of DAG’s collaborative efforts has been to work with institutions and museums, whether thorough the loan of its works for the purpose of exhibitions, or for establishing comprehensive public-private museum exhibitions such as those it had undertaken at Delhi’s Red Fort (Drishyakala) or Kolkata’s Old Currency Building (Ghare Baire) with Archaeological Survey of India. DAG has also run exhibition programmes with the National Gallery of Modern Art, the Bhau Daji Lad Museum in Mumbai, as well as at Jawahar Kala Kendra in Jaipur, the Lalit Kala Akademi in Chandigarh, and other important institutions.

DAG’s galleries are located in Kolkata, New Delhi and Mumbai in India, and in New York in the US.