Edge of Desire Recent Art in India
This exhibition presents the work of thirty-six artists and three
collectives from both urban and rural India produced from 1990 to the
present. The selection explores the role of place and desire in the
creation of visual art in contemporary India, at a time defined by
economic globalization and political fundamentalism. The exhibition
investigates the impact of these germinal forces on the work of a
diverse group of artists who represent different generations, regions,
and social contexts. Their work spans several professional, material,
and disciplinary boundaries, extending across urban, gallery-based
practice and Adivasi (the tribal peoples of India), folk, and popular
visual cultures. There are clearly discernible links, dialogues, and
arguments across this spectrum. The exhibition contributes to a
contemporary understanding of the diversity of visual culture in
contemporary India.
The works are arranged in five
interlocking thematic categories. These thematic divisions suggest
flows across porous boundaries rather than watertight compartments. In
New York, Edge of Desire
is presented at two locations, the Asia Society Museum and the Queens
Museum of Art. The Asia Society Museum features the categories “Unruly
Visions” and “Location/Longing,” and the Queens Museum of Art features
“Transient Self,” “Contested Terrain,” and “Recycled Futures.” Though
there is a sequence in the way the exhibition was conceived, the viewer
is invited to see it as groupings by thematic structure, offered as a
way of entry into this rich, complex, and varied body of work that is
unflinching in its encounter with the contemporary world.
View the online site for Edge of Desire Recent Art in India.