Members' Opening Reception and Lecture 

Reception 6-8 p.m.
Members-only lecture 6:30 p.m. 
Galleries open until 9 p.m.
Docent-led tours at 6, 6:45, and 7:45 p.m.

As the clock chimed the midnight hour on August 15, 1947, India was free. Bombay's Progressive Artists' Group, firebrands from different castes and creeds, came together in the immediate aftermath of Indian independence to provide modern art for a secular India.  As part of the exhibition opening, join guest curator Zehra Jumabhoy to trace the founding ideology of India's so-called "quintessential moderns." How relevant is their message for us today?

Zehra Jumabhoy is a U.K.-based writer, speaker, and art historian. She is an Associate Lecturer specializing in modern and contemporary South Asian art at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, where she completed her doctorate and is a former Steven and Elena Heinz Scholar. She co-organizes Contemporaneity in South Asian Art, a public seminar series at the Courtauld’s Research Forum. She has been editor of the visual art section of Time Out Mumbai and an editor at the journal ART India. Her book, The Empire Strikes Back: Indian Art Today, was published by Random House, London, in 2010. She is the guest curator of “The Progressive Revolution: Modern Art for a New India,” which was partially inspired by her PhD dissertation on the intersection of Indian art and nationalism. 

For more information about membership, please visit AsiaSociety.org/NYMembership

Free for members. No registration required. Tickets are distributed at the front desk from 6 p.m. onwards on a first-come, first served basis.

Part of the Season of India, a series of programs held in conjunction with the exhibition, The Progressive Revolution: Modern Art for a New India, on view at Asia Society Museum from September 14, 2018, to January 20, 2019. 

Presented in part by State Bank of India, proud Supporter of the Season of India.