Modern and contemporary versus folk and tribal art is a debate that has been raging for many decades within art history. While the art market and institutional collecting have a major role to play in these categorizations, Dr. Jyotindra Jain the celebrated former director of the Crafts Museum, Delhi and curator of the seminal exhibition Other Masters: Five Contemporary Folk and Tribal Artists of India (1989), asserts that historically, many modernist artists contested the assimilation of folk artists within the modernist framework. One figure that is central to this discussion, who brought to an end the anonymity of the folk artist and called into question this order through his complexly mediated work, was Jangarh Singh Shyam - the legendary Pardhan artist from Madhya Pradesh discovered by J Swaminathan, and whose entire life was spent at the historic Bharat Bhavan in Bhopal. In his new book, Jangarh Singh Shyam : A Conjuror’s Archive Dr. Jain critically analyses not only Jangarh’s expansive body of work from a ‘cultural inheritance’ perspective, but also the resistance he faced from the Indian art establishment and the ‘extraneous interventions’ and ‘meditations’ that influenced his practice during his meteoric and tragically short lived rise as a formidable artistic force.  

Join us for this discussion with Dr. Jyotindra Jain and Dr. Annapurna Garimella Designer, Art Historian and Curator of the landmark exhibition Vernacular, in the Contemporary 1 & 2 (2010-11) as we discover with them the world of Jangarh Singh Shyam’s paintings and examine where these demarcations lie today.

Dr. Annapurna Garimella is a designer and an art historian. Her research focuses on late medieval Indic architecture and the history and practices of vernacular art forms in India after Independence. She heads Jackfruit Research and Design, an organization with a specialized portfolio of design, research and curation. Jackfruit’s recent curatorial projects include Vernacular, in the Contemporary(Devi Art Foundation, New Delhi); Faith: Manu Parekh in Benaras 1980-2012(Art Alive, New Delhi); Drawing 2014(Gallery Espace, New Delhi); Mutable: Ceramic and Clay Art in India Since 1947(Piramal Museum of Art, 2017) and Barefoot College of Craft in Goa(Serendipity Arts Festival, 2017). Her most recent book is about a collaboration between a Rajasthani miniature painter and an expatriate American photographer and is titled The Artful Life of R. Vijay(Serindia, 2016). In 2017, she was awarded the India TodayEmerging Curator of the Year Award.

Dr. Jyotindra Jain, formerly Director of the National Crafts Museum; Professor of Arts & Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU); and Member Secretary of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, all in New Delhi, was a Visiting Professor at Harvard University and a Rudolf-Arnheim Professor at Humboldt University, Berlin. An eminent scholar of Indian art and popular visual culture, Jain has extensively published in the areas of his specializations, and curated exhibitions shown in some of the most prestigious cultural institutions and museums in India and abroad. A recipient of the Prince Claus Award for Culture, The Netherlands in 1998 and the Cross of Merit, the highest civilian award of Germany in 2018, he presently is a Member of the International Advisory of the Humboldt Forum, a multi-arts complex in Berlin; a Tagore National Fellow; and Editor of Marg Publications, Mumbai.

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