10 · Aniruddha said

It is quite amazing just how many people in every day conversation casually suggest that the “West” has a monopoly on modernity.

What exactly is modernity? If you want to use it as a signifier of the ‘present’ times as opposed to the ‘old’ times as is frequently used colloquially by English speaking Indians then it is one thing. But the article talks about modernism which is rooted in a specific western cultural context. I am not sure Indian history or culture accepts or subscribes to this kind of western classification. The attempt by the author to ‘universalise’ the specific European and later western cultural term is just a means to look at developments in other cultures through a western lens and western categories. An English medium educated, western oriented Indian may try to translate Indian categories into understandable western categories for other’s or his own understanding. That is how late twentieth century Indian trends become Indian ‘modernism’, whatever that means and Indian traditions become Hindu’ism’ a religion in the western mould and so on and so forth!

========================== The site you linked also defines Modernism as

It is a trend of thought that affirms the power of human beings to create, improve, and reshape their environment, with the aid of scientific knowledge, technology or practical experimentation.[1] Modernism encouraged the re-examination of every aspect of existence, from commerce to philosophy, with the goal of finding that which was ‘holding back’ progress, and replacing it with new, progressive and therefore better, ways of reaching the same end.

Is there ‘modern’ Indian art that encapsulates the above idea which is not necessarily rooted in Western culture?

It is quite amazing just how many people in every day conversation casually suggest that the “West” has a monopoly on modernity.

What exactly is modernity? If you want to use it as a signifier of the ‘present’ times as opposed to the ‘old’ times as is frequently used colloquially by English speaking Indians then it is one thing. But the article talks about modernism which is rooted in a specific western cultural context. I am not sure Indian history or culture accepts or subscribes to this kind of western classification. The attempt by the author to ‘universalise’ the specific European and later western cultural term is just a means to look at developments in other cultures through a western lens and western categories. An English medium educated, western oriented Indian may try to translate Indian categories into understandable western categories for other’s or his own understanding. That is how late twentieth century Indian trends become Indian ‘modernism’, whatever that means and Indian traditions become Hindu’ism’ a religion in the western mould and so on and so forth!

By the way, Nandalal Boses’ works displayed here look excellent, but Atul Dodiya’s works don’t speak to me.

“Along with detailed information about one artist’s life and times, the show delivers a significant piece of news, or what is still probably news to many people: that modernism wasn’t a purely Western product sent out like so many CARE packages to a hungry and waiting world. It was a phenomenon that unfolded everywhere, in different forms, at different speeds, for different reasons, under different pressures”

It is quite amazing just how many people in every day conversation casually suggest that the “West” has a monopoly on modernity.