• ISBN13: 9788189487249
• Binding: Paperback
• Subject: History
• Publisher: Tulika Books
• Publisher Imprint: Tulika Books
• Publication Date: March 11, 2020
• Pages: 456
• Original Price: INR 1200.0
• Language: English
• Edition: N/A
• Item Weight: 1020 grams

A commitment to modernity is the underlying theme of this volume. Through essays that are interpretive and theoretical, the author seeks to situate the modern in contemporary cultural practice. The essays divide into three sections. The first two sections, Artists and Artworks and Film/Narratives, raise questions of authorship, genre and contemporary features of national culture that materialize into an aesthetic in the Indian context. The last section—Frames of Reference—formalizes the polemical options developed across the book. The essays here propose resistance to the depoliticization of narratives, and affirm an open-ended engagement with the avant-garde. They explore the possibility of art practice finding its own signifying space that is still a space for radical transformation.

Geeta Kapur is an independent art critic and curator living in New Delhi. Her extensive publications on modern Indian art include Contemporary Indian Artists (1978), and exhibition catalogs and monographs on artists. Her essays on cultural criticism have been widely presented in forums of art history and cultural studies.