Santiniketan: The Making of a Contextual Modernism

Santiniketan: The Making of a Contextual Modernism
AuthorR. Siva Kumar
LanguageEnglish
SubjectArt
PublisherNational Gallery of Modern Art
Publication date
1997
Publication placeIndia
Pages250

Santiniketan: The Making of a Contextual Modernism was an exhibition curated by R. Siva Kumar at the National Gallery of Modern Art in 1997, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of India's Independence.[1]

The exhibition, through bringing about a hundred works each of four modern Indian artists, namely Nandalal Bose, Rabindranath Tagore, Ram Kinker Baij and Benode Behari Mukherjee on the centre stage, put the Santiniketan art movement into focus.[2]

Kumar argues that the "Santiniketan artists did not believe that to be indigenous one has to be historicist either in theme or in style, and similarly to be modern one has to adopt a particular trans-national formal language or technique. Modernism was to them neither a style nor a form of internationalism. It was critical re-engagement with the foundational aspects of art necessitated by changes in one’s unique historical position".[3]

  1. ^ "Santiniketan: The Making of a Contextual Modernism". aaa.org.hk.
  2. ^ "Frontline.in".
  3. ^ "Humanities underground » All the Shared Experiences of the Lived World II". humanitiesunderground.org.