Identity Crisis in the Midst of Globalization: The Matters of Being International and Indian
The world is getting smaller and the positions that contemporary artists play in this small stage creates an ongoing drama of who performs the leading parts and who gets the supporting roles. Consequently, the playwright, the director, and the producer are also in question as to their agenda in the narrative and setting of this grandiose play.
So what is at stake in being part of this global stage for Indian artists? How can an Indian artist maintain her/his “Indianness” in using the same strategies of the international global scene? Or should the international audience be concerned about an artist’s ethnicity in the first place when their work is viewed under the screen of globalization?
I will investigate this idea of globalization and how it creates certain visual vernaculars to either receive or refuse this intercultural exchange. The art world is an example of how the global market now has shaped the exchange of goods between nations. And the perceptions that come along with these commodities are integral to how this exchange is not necessarily equal. The political condition in India is very significant in terms of what art is produced and how it is dispersed internationally. In “On the Double Edge of Desire,” Chaitanya Sambrani describes India’s current political upheavals and how this situation influences the visual culture in India,
Within a national framework, this decade [1993-2003] has seen the undermining of certitudes and aspirations fundamental to the struggle for self-determination and the establishment of a secular, socialist democracy. Meanwhile, this period has also seen a growth in India’s international prominence as a military, economic, and technological power. These factors have inevitably influenced major changes in visual culture.[1]
This major change is what is central in the crisis that Indian artists face in terms of their local situation as social commentators and also their part within a global art scene. Furthermore, how can an artist who speaks of their local situation be comprehended in the context of an international audience? Will there be a lost in translation when encountering a work or does this localized work open possibilities for an international discourse? This third space in which Indian artists are positioned is problematized with varying results — Bhabha calls it ‘in-between’ spaces,[2] while Kapur calls it, ‘subterrain.’[3]. A specific debate arises from this tension. On the one hand, participation in the global art scene can be perceived as a positive effort in bridging boundaries and having fruitful exchanges of ideas. On the other hand, this push for globalization is not necessarily balanced because specific cultural differences are homogenized into one language (usually that of the dominant culture); therefore, reclamation of one’s identity and localized history is crucial. Moreover, there is also an agenda in promoting a country’s nominalization of specific artists for the sake of an homogenous nationalism. Certain scholars like that of Homi K. Bhabha and Geeta Kapur will be critical in this paper in terms of examining the inevitability of this global stage and the resistance needed in order to maintain this difference, but at the same time be part of the play. Accordingly, Indian artists are in the midst of this debate in terms of how to articulate their situation about their country’s plight and the insistence of globalization. What are specific strategies made to appease this debate? Can new trends of medium, for example, video and installation — like that of Nalini Malani’s Remembering Toba Tek Singh (Fig. 1) — a solution because it does not have much of a historical weight as that of painting or sculpture? Could these new media be then the equalizer because of its recent development? And in turn, by using this international device, does the Indian artist become just an artist? And does the Indian audience become part of an international spectatorship?
Fig. 1: Nalini Malani, Remembering Toba Tek Singh, 1998-1999. Video installation, 20 min.,
four DVD projectors, sound, 12 monitors, quilts, tin trunks, mirrored Mylar,
adaptation from Saadat Hassan Manto, Toba Tek Singh.
Reinventing tradition: a brief look at recent historical developments in India
A foundation of historical accounts starting from post-independence India to current religious fundamentalism of Hindutva, apropos of the development in art, is necessary, as this becomes the weight on contemporary Indian artists’ shoulders. With the crucial rupture in 1947, India’s independence generated a specific image towards that of the Indian artist. The pressure to create images that is distinctively Indian, but yet contemporary with the times foreshadows what Indian artists are facing today with the added force of globalization. In “Dismantling the Norm,” Geeta Kapur illustrates this binary trope by using M. F. Husain as an example of the effect of post-independence,
Husain [et. al] has helped to make modern art in India autonomous — but that of course, is already an institutionalized notion in bourgeois society. And, by virtue of the socialist register in the liberal society of postindependence India, the modern artist occupies yet another institutionalized cultural space: as the peoples’ representative. These two contradictory modes of formalizing the Indian artist’s identity — as autonomous and as a spokesperson for the people — are held together by an idealized notion of the artist immersed in an undivided community.[4]
Kapur alludes to the myth of the modern artist as a central figure in which society depends on. She encourages moving away from this Greenbergian thought of the ego of the artist into a more socialist strategy; thus, reversing the core (artist) and periphery (society) model. According to Greenberg, the artist neglects the outside world in order to find purity in her/his work; the ego and the object stands on its own:
Retiring from public altogether, the avant-garde poet or artist sought to maintain the high level of his art by both narrowing and raising it to the expression of an absolute in which all relativities and contradictions would be either resolved or beside the point.[5]
However, these artists were under the belly of Greenberg’s ideals and, subsequently, the United States government’s promotion of Abstract Experessionism globally, which India had a taste of. Greenberg himself contradicts the idea of the artist as existing in a vacuum, oblivious of what is out the window because he at the end established the ego and not the artist. To reiterate, in “Exhibition Strategies in Postcolonial Era,” Thomas McEvilley demystifies this ego as a social consequence,
Viewed as historical fact, the fate of the work in the world was actually determined less by the artists’ intentions than by the ambient system of criticism and curation. The work of the American Expressionists was appropriated from the intentions of its makers by a series of exhibitions arranged by the United States government.[6]
Kapur extends this demystification of the artist’s ego by promoting the artist as more of a social sponge reflecting and commenting on their surroundings. K. G. Subramanyan shares this change, by stating that artists “are more concerned with concept and content than formal considerations. It will be hard to get an artist of today to talk about the physical qualities of a work rather than its purposes.”[7] For example, we see this change in Place for People exhibition, where Kapur picks specific artists to speak about the Emergency. She refers to Bertolt Brecht in terms of using art as a means of social responsibility: “Inducting art into the framework of historical materialism he [Brecht] thereby gives it a far more complex propellant than it has hitherto possessed in relation to history.”[8] Even M. F. Husain, the par excellence of post-independence identity, is now being confronted with current social upheavals of religious fundamentalism. Hindutva’s aim to promote a single Hindu identity is what artists in India are contending with. In short, according to Jayant Lele, Hindutva “transforms the crisis of political economy into a threat to the nation from enemies both within and without. In order to sustain this claim it transforms the image of the Indian nation into that of a Hindu nation.”[9] Following the destruction of the Babri Masjid in 6 December 1992, artists had to respond towards this atrocity as shown for example in the Edge of Desire: Recent Art in India exhibition. Specifically grouped under the heading “Contested Terrain,” artists’ works, like Nalani Malani’s The Sacred and the Profane (Fig. 2) responds to this crisis of fundamentalism. According to Sambrani,
works grouped under the theme “Contested Terrain” function as bridges between the concerns articulated by artists [….] A range of responses to fundamentalism is presented here, spanning the decade since the demolition of the Babri Mosque signaled the triumphant march of the Hindu Right to political center stage.[10]
Fig. 2: Nalini Malani, The Sacred and the Profane, 1998. Synthetic polymer paint on mylar, steel, nylon cord, electric motors, lights and hardware.
Moreover, this exhibition was shown in several international locations, for example Mexico, Australia, and the United States.[11] This exhibition also signals India’s position as a contemporary voice in the global scene.
It’s a small world after all
Kapur’s allusion to breaking from Greenbergian methodology in a way is contradictory as she too picks specific artists to be represented internationally. But the difference to Greenberg is that her roster of artists is not talking about the formal qualities of their art, instead, they are visually revealing the social issues concerning to their homeland. However, these artists who speak of their quandaries about their situation at home are sublimated through a national façade and then subjected to the international art market. Moreover, these diverse artists are transformed into a single image of India. How does the audience from the West receive an edited version of works from India? In “Remaking Passports,” Néstor García Canclini addresses the global art market’s filtering effect on artists’ intentions: “But it is above all the art market that declassifies national artists, or at least subordinates the local connotations of the work, converting them into secondary folkloric references of an international, homogenised discourse.”[12] Canclini’s perception of this discourse is too stark because at the very least there is participation from other countries intending to be heard. Canclini shows that the danger of the art market is that it conveniently packages other countries as a mere contrast to the West. I understand Canclini’s pessimism and maybe the reason for his reaction is that the artists are still under the umbrella of a nationalistic agenda or at least still being labeled as non-West. Therefore, the artist’s intention is limited through her/his ethnicity. The discourse is then not equal, as Canclini suggests it is homogenised, because by being labeled as non-West the exchange only perpetuates the ‘us vs. them’ binary. Even if this discourse is unbalanced, it does not mean that it should cease completely. Rather, once a repression is recognized a reaction must follow. In “Into the Fututre,” Peter Wollen describes this recognition of one’s position within a discourse:
Not only is this a post-colonial history, in which most Third World countries have already acquired their own post-colonial history and even their own repression of history, bit it is also a postmodern era, in which the artistic modernism initiated by Picasso, and Americanized by Pollock, finally entered into crisis.[13]
It can be depressing to recognize your position within a structured discourse, but this position should be seen as always changing. Kapur poses a new way of tackling the position of Indian artists,
I would maintain that the norm of an integrated Indian identity was honorable, but such a view does not hold so well now. While cultural imperialism dressed up in euphemistic phrases is becoming the more globally rampant, our critical task is further situated — paradoxical as it may seem — in the framework of a national culture. But from the other end, as it were, what most needs unmasking is the civilizational profile that cultural practitioners in India, artists among them, have hitherto adopted.[14]
Kapur shifts her earlier remark, in “Art and Internationalism” regarding the devaluation of authenticity in the course of globalization: “If despite this [new globalism] an artist continues with so primitive a vocation as the making of images it might just help if he keeps out of step with global trends.”[15] I do not find Kapur’s shift as her being overwhelmed by the inevitability of globalization, but I decipher this change as a new strategy of working within a system; thus, using the same tools as the rest of the world, but still in contention.
Third space: another voice
Because of the crisis that Indian artists face due to their position between globalization and national concerns, Homi K. Bhabha and Geeta Kapur posit a third space where artists inhabit. While having similar concerns in terms of having a third voice, Kapur and Bhabha’s strategy differ. Bhabha involves a negotiation of the subject position consciousness as occupying an ‘in-between’ or ‘interstices’ space where artists’ notion of self is less important than the position they have within a global stage. He proposes going beyond identity and instead participate as a social subject:
What is theoretically innovative, and politically crucial, is the need to think beyond narratives of originary and initial subjectivities and to focus on those moments or processes that are produced in the articulation of cultural differences. These ‘in-between’ spaces provide the terrain for elaborating strategies of selfhood — singular or communal — that initiate new signs of identity, and innovative sites of collaboration, and contestation, in the act of defining the idea of society itself.[16]
Artists should hybridize their identity, rather than being completely different so as to ride with the wave of international discourse. In other words, in order to be part of this discourse an artist should use the same language and strategy to equalize the exchange and to be lucidly comprehended. I agree with this position to some degree because artists should be aware of the advent of a global village and remark on this inevitable change by adapting their work to participate equally. I think that this ‘hybridity’ that Bhabha states, or what I prefer to call ‘adaptation’ is necessary as not just a means of survival, but refusing to be left out from contemporary discourse. However, this utopic space purports that everyone is only evenly balanced if they use the same vernacular, which then brings up the question of what if an individual or group refuses to speak the same tongue? Does that make them inferior because they are not following the standard? This collective mindset sees difference as outmoded and inevitably homogenized by globalization. Although, it is necessary for Indian artists to adapt, they should not completely change in order to be accepted. Instead of the belief that an artist can only survive globalization by assimilating, maybe the global audience should be able to understand and accept difference. Maintenance of the artist’s identity, while still being contemporary can coexist in a multi-faceted world, not a homogenous one. Kapur sees Bhabha’s notion of ‘hybridity’ as simplistic and blind-sighted to difference and demands the global world to adapt to this difference, rather than the other way around,
we must look not for hybrid solutions but for dialectical synthesis [….] A space for contradictions has to be opened within the national/modern paradigm so that there is a real (battle) ground for cultural difference and so that identities can be posed in a far more acute manner than postmodern notions of hybridity can accommodate.[17]
Instead of promoting an inevitability of a single language, a paralleling of different languages should be supported; thus, the level of playing field is equal because everyone is expected to understand differences. Subsequently, an artist’s identity is still intact because her/his background is secondary to the intentions of the work. Moreover, these intentions are taken first-hand and their political value is not sublimated into just a localized problem, but an international concern located in a specific discourse. Speaking of one’s own place not only helps to maintain once identity, but also diversifies the many concerns the world faces. A localized problem should not be taken as a cry for help to the international audience, but a reminder of the many problems that people face so as to question the position of the viewer within the global village. To reiterate, the audience is asked to participate with the discourse rather than just be an observer. Kapur insists that the Indian artist’s political effect is to maintain a sense of localized history,
I propose to situate the artist (here, the Indian artist) in an uneasy ‘subterrain’ of the contemporary where she/he reclaims memory and history; where the leveling effect of the ahistorical no-nation, no-place phenomenon promoted by globalised exhibition and marker circuits is upturned to rework a passage back into the politics of place.[18]
This passage is an extension to what she was promoting earlier in Place for People in terms of reclaiming place as a form of resistance. Now, Kapur uses this earlier concept of local resistance and affixes it to a resistance to an international homogeny; therefore, the everyday is not only a direct resistance to right-wing nationalism, but it can also be seen as resisting the spectacle of globalization. The artist then, according to Kapur, acknowledges enemies inside and outside because she/he “accepts the pressures of a turbulently unsettled society and makes it the very task of art practice to try and hold off oppressive ideologies: in present-day India, those of right-wing nationalism and coercive globalization.”[19] Similarly, in “Modern Indian Art,” R. Siva Kumar reveals the position of the Indian artist as being on the fence:
These two alternate responses to postmodernity, one favoring participatory intervention and the other preferring differentiative resistance, have brought a new complexity and a new edge to the discourse of identity in Indian art. They do not […] signal the end of modernism in Indian art, but they do represent a new threshold.[20]
However, the “two alternate responses” should not limit the Indian artist to choose which side to settle. As an alternative, the Indian artist can be contemporary to the global art community by becoming aware of this fraught position, while still being rooted to their heritage.
Nalini Malani’s video installations: An example
Recently exhibiting at the Venice Biennale 2007: 52nd International Art Exhibition: Think with the Senses — Feel with the Mind Art in the Present Tense,[21] [22] Nalini Malani’s works participate in an international vernacular of a new medium, yet still maintaining a strong identity. Born in 1946 in Karachi, Pakistan and now lives and works in Mumbai, India, Malani was first known for her figurative paintings, like that of her recent series — Living in Alicetime (Fig. 3). She has also expanded her repertoire in video installation.
Fig. 3: Nalini Malani, Balancing Act 2 (caliper), 2005-2006. Reverse painting on acyrlic, 72” x 36” each.
This relatively new medium is crucial to many contemporary artists in dealing with the spectacle of the media (specifically through television) and the digital world. Video installation is relevant and apposite to current phenomena, namely that of India’s prominence as a technological powerhouse.
Throughout Malani’s work, her main focus is the politicized body (usually the female) situated in a localized narrative. I propose that her video installations is the third voice that Kapur was promoting because Malani visually narrates a localized problem, but uses a new medium that is accessible to the global art world. Kapur talks about this conflation of the national and international by using the everyday as political, with reference to Malani’s video installations:
I put her [Malani] at the start of an argument in which I suggest that Indian artists typically continue to address national issues head-on. This is the politics of place that I speak about and it goes beyond the space allocated to us in the local/global framework. It is a politics that refuses to be restricted to a simple localism based on questions of ethnic identity or to be subsumed by the maw of globalism.[23]
And video installation is a crucial medium in terms of bringing the viewer into the experience of the everyday or the personal in a more direct way than that of a painting. The relationship of the viewer and the artwork is merged into one experience, rather than just having the viewer as a mere observer of an object. Hence, installation intrinsically brings the viewer into a three-dimensional painting. Likewise, in an interview with Ilya Kabakov, he posits the potential of the relationship between the viewer and an installation in contrast to painting,
My assumption was that the whole point of encountering installation work is to enter a space where you don’t know where you are and you have to learn how to imaginatively put it together. That’s something that once had to be done with modern painting. But now the surprise of modern painting has been made official, whereas the surprise of installation art has not. In a way, learning how to look at installations might teach people what they have forgotten to see in paintings.[24]
To add to this relationship is the new language that is formulated in a contemporary/global world where it falls under a universal code, yet still flexible to localized situations. Therefore, the binary of local versus global is debunked because it addresses and accommodates the two positions. This language is open to the viewer’s own associations alongside the artist’s motivation of the work. For example, in Remembering Toba Tek Singh (Fig. 1), Malani brings to the viewer the history of the Partition between India and Pakistan. By talking about a specific story, Malani magnifies a situation that many experienced in terms of being uprooted from their homes and forced to migrate to Pakistan because of their Muslim background. This video installation was based on a famous story by Saadat Hasan Manto, where “a mad guy named Bishen Singh who was so confused by the processes of administering India’s Partition that he did not know whether the land he was standing on was India or Pakistan.”[25] Twelve trunks illustrate this no-man’s land as a metonymy of the forced migrants. Located in each trunk are televisions where “[o]ne set showed a blue sky, another a baby being born and in reverse action disappearing back into a womb.”[26] Finally, these twelve trunks are juxtaposed with two video projections: where one screen shows two women (as a connotation to India and Pakistan) attempting to fold a sari, while the other shows a plane launching egg-shaped bombs that turn into the famous atomic mushroom clouds detonated by the Americans at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.[27] By alluding to a localized story and to an iconic symbol of global warfare Malani resolves the notion of being on the fence because she uses two different stories as an access point for audiences to relate and contemplate. In other words, she uses both general (global) and specific (local) knowledge to talk about political atrocities around the world. Therefore, the viewer (whether local or global) is included into the narrative. Kapur posits this specific video installation as the potential answer in balancing a notion of “Indianness,” while still being a part of the global world:
Malani sets up the mise-en-scène for a tragic replay of wars and violence and inscribes a voice-narrative about the nuclearisation of India and Pakistan [….] But the narrative is the more searing because it shows glimpses of belligerent nationalisms the world over, with a direct indictment of capitalist nations – crucially the USA during and since the Japan bombings […].[28]
Originally known as part of The Baroda School group of painters who heavily used figuration amidst an historical setting to reveal and discuss political upheavals in India, Malani expands her talent into video installation as a marker of how Indian artists have come to play a pivotal role in the global stage. Indian artists are aware of this new language and they definitely have the same claim as anybody else in the international scene.
Conclusion: a new language, a loud voice, a receptive audience
Nalini Malani continues to use video installation to invite the viewer to actively participate in the discourse that she had laid out; for example, Hamletmachine (1999 – 2000), Transgressions (2001), Unity in Diversity (2003), and Gamepieces (2003) just to enumerate a few. Other artists have also used the possibilities of video and/or installation at its most effective, like Atul Dodiya, Navjot Altaf, N. N. Rimzon, Subodh Gupta, Ranbir Kaleka, Anant Joshi, Vivan Sundaram, Rummana Hussain (who just recently passed away in 1999), and Ranbir Kaleka. With the consequence of historical, political, and social weight of what India is currently facing while at the same time being barraged with globalization, Indian artists are balancing what Bhabha and Kapur are inquiring. Although Bhabha anticipates the inevitability of an homogenous world, Kapur conjectures a world that is collective in terms of understanding differences. Moreover, Kapur recognizes that at least in art, the artist cannot be stuck to one style or technique, instead she/he must constantly rework their ideas to be on centre stage, while still having a clear sense of home. With recent inceptions of new media such as performance, video, digital, installation, or a combination of any, a new language is being laid down. And because the global stage is getting smaller, everyone has a claim to this new language.
Bibliography
Bhabha, Homi K. “On ‘Hybridity’ and ‘Moving Beyond.’” in Art in Theory 1900– 2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, edited by Charles Harrison and Paul Wood, 1110-1116. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2003.
Canclini, Néstor García. “Remaking Passports: Visual thought in the Debate on Multiculturalism.” in The Visual Culture Reader. 2nd ed. Edited by Nicholas Mirzhoeff, 180-189. London: Routledge, 2002.
Greenberg, Clement. “Avant-Garde and Kitsch.” in Art in Theory 1900–2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, edited by Charles Harrison and Paul Wood, 539-548. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2003.
Kabakov, Ilya. “On Installations.” in Art in Theory 1900–2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, edited by Charles Harrison and Paul Wood,175-180. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2003.
Kapur, Geeta. “Art and Internationalism.” Economic and Political Weekly (May 13, 1978): 802-803.
———. “Dismantling the Norm.” in Traditions/Tensions: Contemporary Art in Asia, 60-69. New York: Asia Society Galleries, 1996.
———. “Partisan Views about the Human Figure.” in Place for People. Bombay: Jahangir Art Gallery: Delhi: Rabindra Bhavan, 1981.
———. “subTerrain: Artworks in the Cityfold.” Third Text 21, no. 3 (May 2007): 277-296.
Kumar, R. Siva. “Modern Indian Art: A Brief Overview.” Art Journal 58, no. 3 (Autumn 1999): 14-21.
Lele, Jayant. “Hindutva as Pedagogic Violence.” in Hindutva: The Emergence of the Right, 81-103. Madras: Earthworm Books, 1995.
McEvilley, Thomas. “Exhibition Strategies in the Postcolonial Era.” in Traditions/Tensions: Contemporary Art in Asia, 54-59. New York: Asia Society Galleries, 1996.
Rajadhyaksha, Ashish. “Spilling Out: Nalini Malani’s Recent Video Installations.” Third Text 17, no. 1 (2003): 53-61.
Sambrani, Chaitanya. “On the Double Edge of Desire.” in Edge of Desire: Recent Art in India, 12-33. London: Philip Wilson Publishers, 2005.
Subramanyan, K. G. “The Struggle for Image in Contemporary Indian Art.” in Fine arts College Alumni Get-Together Souvenir, 1971. Baroda: Maharaja Sayajirao University, 1971.
Wollen, Peter. “Into the Future: Tourism, Language and Art.” in Art in Theory 1900–2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, edited by Charles Harrison and Paul Wood, 1105-1110. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2003.
* All cited in http://www.nalinimalani.com/. For complete information please check bibliography.
[1] Chaitanya Sambrani, “On the Double Edge of Desire,” in Edge of Desire: Recent Art in India (London: Philip Wilson Publishers, 2005), 13.
[2] Homi K. Bhabha, “On ‘Hybridity’ and ‘Moving Beyond,’” in Art in Theory 1900 – 2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, ed. Charles Harrison and Paul Wood (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), 1111.
[3] Geeta Kapur, “subTerrain: Artworks in the Cityfold,” Third Text 21, no. 3 (May 2007): 277.
[4] Geeta Kapur, “Dismantling the Norm,” in Traditions/Tensions: Contemporary Art in Asia (New York: Asia Society Gallery, 1996), 60.
[5] Clement Greenberg, “Avant-Garde and Kitsch,” in Art in Theory 1900 – 2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, ed. Charles Harrison and Paul Wood (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), 541.
[6] Thomas McEvilley, “Exhibition Strategies in the Postcolonial Era,” in Traditions/Tensions: Contemporary Art in Asia (New York: Asia Society Gallery, 1996), 54.
[7] K. G. Subramanyan, “The Struggle for Image in Contemporary Indian Art,” in Fine Arts College Alumni Get-Together Souvenir, 1971 (Baroda: Maharaja Sayajirao University, 1971).
[8] Geeta Kapur, “Partisan Views about the Human Figure,” in Place for People (Bombay: Jahangir Art Gallery: Delhi: Rabindra Bhacab, 1981).
[9] Jayant Lele, “Hindutva as Pedagogic Violence,” in Hindutva: The Emergence of the Right (Madras: Earthworm Books, 1995), 99.
[10] Sambrani, 23.
[11] Final venue held in India.
[12] Néstor García Canclini, “Remaking Passports: Visual Thought in the Debate on Multiculturalism,” in The Visual Culture Reader, 2nd ed., ed. Nicholas Mirzoeff (London: Routledge, 2002), 183.
[13] Peter Wollen, “Into the Future: Tourism, Language and Art,” in Art in Theory 1900 – 2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, ed. Charles Harrison and Paul Wood (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), 1106.
[14] Kapur, “Dismantling,” 61.
[15] Geeta Kapur, “Art and Internationalism,” in Economic and Political Weekly (May 13, 1978), 803.
[16] Bhabha, 1111.
[17] Kapur, “Dismantling,” 63.
[18] Kapur, “subTerrain,” 277.
[19] Ibid. 278.
[20] R. Siva Kumar, “Modern Indian Art: A Brief Overview,” Art Journal 58, no. 3 (Autumn 1999), 21.
[21] Curated by Robert Storr.
[22] The exhibition took place from 10 June to 21 November 2007.
[23] Kapur, “subTerrain,” 281.
[24] Ilya Kabakov, “On Installations,” in Art in Theory 1900 – 2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, ed. Charles Harrison and Paul Wood (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), 1179.
[25] Ashish Rajadhyaksha, “Spilling Out: Nalini Malani’s Recent Video Installations,” Third Text 17, no. 1 (2003): 60.
[26] Ibid., 53
[27] This relates to her fascination of mutations of the human body (particularly in her paintings) in terms of being exposed by radioactive waste material.
[28] Kapur, “subTerrain,” 281.
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