Introduction by Betty Seid

Introduction

Betty Seid

Contemporary art in India reflects her world recognition as a major player in the new millennium. The journey from modern to contemporary art in India continues to be one from indigenous to global—intersecting with international art at increasingly frequent intervals as time progresses. By making “now” my curatorial priority, this book has a perspective that has been missing from most previous books and exhibitions of recent art from India. To celebrate only the “glorious” past was to miss the point of India’s rising global presence, and how far she has come since her mid-century Independence. It is time to celebrate India’s artistic independence.

Narration is the connective thread that binds contemporary artists to India’s rich oral traditions. All narrative is ultimately personal, once the storyteller has chosen to tell his or her tale. But some narratives are more personal than others—investigations of the psyche through stream of consciousness, portrayal of dreams, exploration of family lineage, episodic self-portraiture. Others choose to make visual the milieu they exist in via observations of daily rituals, politics, and the general ironies of living in the twenty-first century. Literature draws other artists to go beyond illustration and to add, like sages of yore, a layer of commentary to existing tales.

Recent work by twenty-one artists has been selected to represent art-making in India today. This catalog is published in conjunction with an extensive exhibition of painting, photography, sculpture and installation art, along with works in video and new media that opens at the Chicago Cultural Center in July 2007. This endeavor has involved extensive on-site research in India, New York and elsewhere, to produce the first exhibition in the United States to feature works of only the twenty-first century, made in India, with several pieces being created solely for this exhibition.

Anju Dodiya. The Path of Berries, 2005. Detail, see page 60.