FOREWORD

INTRODUCTION

IN the introduction to her fascinating book, Conversations before the End of Time, American art critic Suzi Gablik states: ‘…I hope the practice of dialogue may become more widely recognized for

the special sort of harmonics that it offers: a latticework of thoughts and points of view that interweave and

complement each other. Allowing the truth of the subject to emerge not from any one point of view but

from many makes any entrenched position open to question: it will always be destabilized by another

perspective. For this reason the very process of dialogue can, of itself, transform the world view of self

assured individualism and radical self-suffi ciency, since when individual consciousness breaks out of the

limits of its own preconceptions and expectations, it travels out more freely, in many different directions.’

India 20 aspires to do the same: the attempt has been to allow the artist’s voice to emerge sans the

burden of a loaded position and an occasionally preconceived perception of his/her artistic practice.

India 20 also refrains from succumbing to that unfailing Indian penchant for archaic terminology. The

tone is spontaneous and candid in keeping with the belief that lucid is not necessarily simplistic. These

conversations – most of the questionnaires evolved out of free-wheeling discussion and were jointly

edited – provide a rare kind of mapping of individual voices and, in the process, of the artistic trajectory of

twenty contemporaries living and working across the country, and in Shibu Natesan’s case, overseas.

A buoyant and vibrant climate is characteristic of the market and milieu for Indian contemporary art

today. From 1990 to 2006, the graph has seen a steady upward movement being plotted upon it. The

upsurge of 2005−2006 only underscores the size of the iceberg. In the case of the twenty artists featured

here, price is merely one quantifi er of the quality of work. The selection is based on my own interest in