TAASA Review Issues

TAASA’s 2024 Monday night zoom series ‘The Arts of India: New Perspectives’ is the catalyst for this issue of the Review which includes contributions from all presenters. In total, the articles demonstrate the impressive scholarship being undertaken in Australia, as well as the talent and creativity of contemporary Indian artists. The title ‘New Perspectives’ resonates across many spheres: new research that results in the re-assessment of existing knowledge; the inspiration that traditional ideas can give artists; even new techniques which stimulate unanticipated images. The depth of India’s cultural heritage offers endless opportunities for fresh insights and creative re-interpretations.

Chaitanya Sambrani concisely elicits the challenges for contemporary Indian art through a detailed analysis of works by Bhupen Khakhar and Nalini Malani. Khakhar had a long involvement with the ‘ordinary, non-heroic figure’ while Malani is involved with issues of political and environmental protest. Sambrani’s final comment is pertinent: ‘Contemporary artists in India have continued to question the insularities of tradition and classicism, and to renew a critical analysis of nationhood and national tradition with particular attention to elisions and absences’.

Contemporary artist Desmond Lazaro, in an interview with Jackie Dunn and Melanie Eastburn, discusses his recent body of work Cosmos which explores spiritual, scientific and alchemical concepts. This research led to his absorbing installation Point and Line to Plane shown alongside the Kandinsky exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Melbourne-based Priyanka Jain reflects on the gradual disappearance of traditional practices such as pictorial recitations and shares her contribution to renewing and extending this unique Indian performative tradition of great potency. Priyanka’s outline of her own studio practice in creating a performance of picture recitation from scratch is illuminating.

In considering modern architecture in South Asia, Amit Srivastava and Peter Scriver highlight the significant role played by two generations of Australian scholars who have contributed substantively through their publications and curatorial work to an emerging new discourse on ‘architectural modernisms of South Asia’.

Commendable too is the research discussed by Mark Allon, namely that of the University of Sydney based Gandhari Manuscript Project (GMP) for the conservation, imaging, study and publication of ancient Gandhari manuscripts, involving an international cross disciplinary group of scholars. The manuscripts – birch bark scrolls dating from approximately the 1st century BCE to the 3rd century CE, and now housed in the Islamabad Museum – represent the oldest Buddhist and oldest South Asian manuscripts yet discovered.

Lucie Folan shares her PhD research into the deeply meaningful images of pilgrimage sites (known as tīrtha paṭa) commissioned by adherents of the Śvetāmbara Mūrtipūjak (white-clad, image-worshipping) sect of India’s Jain religion. Folan documents their changing artistic style, political contexts and ritual uses, from the earliest in the 15th century to contemporary images, displayed to assist Śvetāmbara audiences experience a pilgrimage of the mind (bhāva yātrā).

In his article on a miniature painting in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Eeshan Bannerjee too shows the new perspectives that arise through research. Tales of Vishnu comprises 24 vignettes of incarnations of the god. The significance of this painting is that it presents Vishnu beyond the traditional depiction of the first ten avatars, showcasing more obscure tales and characters that reflect popular Hinduism in the 19th century.

Sushma Griffin focuses on an image of the fictional encounter of Ishwari Prasad Narayan Singh (1822-1889), Maharaja of Banaras, presenting Queen Victoria (1819-1901) the Hindi translation of her book Leaves from the Journal of our Life in the Highlands from 1848 to 1861. Griffin argues for a re-thinking of this image against the fractious political conditions of post-1857 India, and the then novel use of painted photographs as opposed to traditional miniature compositions.

In examining the life of Maharani Gayatri Devi of Jaipur (1919- 2009), Christina Sumner presents a portrait of an extraordinary woman. Her progressive upbringing led to her engagement with social change for Indian women, while encouraging the revival of Jaipur’s threatened traditional arts and theatre.

To round off this adventure into India, Christine Inglis reminds us of the pleasure to be gained from travel. Inglis recounts her visit to two lesser-known religious sites in Tamil Nadu: a Shiva temple, dating from approximately the mid-9th century and a Jain rock hewn temple dating to the 2nd century BCE, distinguished by the mural paintings on the ceiling – like so much in India, an unexpected pleasure.

TAASA’s AGM will have been held by the time you receive this issue of the TAASA Review. My thanks to all who managed to participate. A report will be provided in the September issue.