'Figure/Landscape' show - part II

A two-part exhibition series, staged in New York and London, aims to explore prevalence of the figurative in modern Indian art through the presentation of works from across the 20th century (and some from the current century). Landscape, the figure and the interplay between them are the pivot points for the project.

Scholar Partha Mitter has argued that the Industrial Revolution in the West, and the subsequent feelings of alienation and angst it bred amongst individuals, helped give rise to the radically distorted and fragmented techniques that became the hallmark of much of European modernism. According to this argument, India, in the first part of the twentieth century at least, was still largely a non-industrial country with a certain level of socio-economic cohesion binding together much of the population.

It was this sense of shared cultural experience, already rapidly disintegrating in Western societies that shaped the unique paths India’s early modern artists collectively began to explore. The figure of the common man or woman ensconced in a native landscape can then be understood as an articulation of an indigenous modernism, even while its artists continued to draw upon the aesthetics of the broader international discourse.

Typical of such a practice is the artist Sudhir Patwardhan's aim, which he described as "to make figures that can become self-images for the people who are the subject of my work.” Or, as critic Geeta Kapur contends concerning this shared modernist drive in "Contemporary Indian Artists," "the sense of community belongs as much to the past as to the future."

Part I of the show took place early this year at Aicon, New York. It featured works by artist MF Husain, George Keyt, Anjolie Ela Menon, Akbar Padamsee, Sudhir Patwardhan, Jehangir Sabavala, Sadequain, F N Souza, and Jagdish Swaminathan among others.

Part 2 of the show takes place at its London venue (25th November 2010- to 8th January 2011) features artists Rameshwar Broota, Avinash Chandra, Jogen Chowdhury, Ganesh Haloi, M.F.Husain, George Keyt, Akbar Padamsee, Sudhir Patwardhan, Shyamal Dutta Ray, Jehangir Sabavala, Sadequain, F.N. Souza, Viren Tanwar and T. Vaikuntham, among others.