When was Modernism: Essays on Contemporary Cultural Practice in India

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A commitment to modernity is the underlying theme of this volume. Through essays that range from interpretive prose-pieces to theoretical expositions, the author seeks to situate the modern in contemporary cultural practice. She sets up an ideological vantagepoint to view modernism along its multiple tracks in India and the third world. The essays divide into three sections. The first two sections, Artists and Art Work and Film/narratives, analyse the works of a selection of artists and filmmakers, raising questions of auteur, genre and features of the national, as these materialize into an aesthetic within the Indian modern. The last section, Frames of Reference, deals with broader cultural issues. The essays here formalize polemical options that emerge from concerns developed across the book. They propose resistance to the depoliticization of the narrative, and affirm open-ended engagement with the avantgarde. They explore the possibility of cultural practice finding its own signifying space that is still a space for radical transformation.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Geeta Kapur

Geeta Kapur is an independent art critic and curator living in New Delhi. Her extensive publications on modern Indian art include the book Contemporary Indian Artists (Delhi, 1978), exhibition catalogues and monographs on artists. She is currently writing a monograph on Tyeb Mehta. Her essays on cultural criticism have been widely presented in forums of art history and culture studies. Her curatorial work includes the show 'Bombay/Mumbai 1992-2001' in the multi-part exhibition titled Century City: Art and Culture in the Modern Metropolis, at Tate Modern, London, in 2001. She is a founder-editor of Journal of Arts& Ideas, and advisory editor to Third Text. She has held research fellowships at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, and Clare Hall, Cambridge University.