Evocations of Nation and Subversion in Contemporary Art: A Reading of the Divine Feminine

Speaker: Gayatri Sinha
In collaboration with Tyeb Mehta Foundation

July 26, 2010 | 6.30 pm
Little Theatre, National Centre for the Performing Arts, Mumbai

This paper is concerned with the status of the divine feminine as a subject in art. As an entrenched principle in Indian thought, the goddess was especially vivified, during the nationalist period. In the last two decades, however, the divine feminine has become a site of re-examination. With references to the history of the goddess within modern Indian nationhood, it examines subsequent responses and subversions by contemporary artists from the 1990s onwards. In this context, this paper addresses the notion of exile uncovered in the practices and positions of MF Husain and Tyeb Mehta and the politics of exile.

Gayatri Sinha is an art critic and independent curator, based in New Delhi. As an art critic and columnist, she has written for national dailies and has several prestigious publications & curated shows to her credit. Her concerns as a writer is inter-disciplinary that draws in classical and vernacular strains, social polity and critical theory and as an editor, she has brought together scholars and critics to examine Indian art practices from the 1850s onwards.