Indian Images Reflect the Present
A Review of ‘Goddess, Lion, Peasant, Priest,' in Ewing
Collection of Shelley and Donald Rubin A 2007 mixed-media piece by Seema Kohli.
EWING, N.J.
An untitled 1989 watercolor by G. R. Santosh.
“Skin Grafted,†a 2007 acrylic by Mahjabin Majumdar.
“Shakti,†a 1979 work in oil by M. F. Husain.
BEFORE “Goddess, Lion, Peasant, Priest,†an exhibition of modern and contemporary Indian art, came to the College of New Jersey here last month, it had already provided its curator with a crash course on Americans' attitudes toward art from that part of the world.
At Oglethorpe University Museum of Art in Atlanta, where a larger version of the show ran from March to September 2011, “people were surprised by the variety,†said Rebecca M. Brown, a teaching professor in the history of art department at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Dr. Brown curated the Atlanta show and served as guest curator in New Jersey.
“My response to that was, ‘That's because we don't know this material. To us, it's not familiar,' †she said. “But what if we were to do an exhibition of postwar art in America? It would be really, really diverse.â€
The 22 paintings on display at the 1,800-square-foot gallery here both adhere to and diverge from expectations of what Indian art might look like in the years from 1947, the year India gained independence, to the present, which is the era the show documents, Dr. Brown said. All the works are figural, for example; that is, they portray the human form in various styles (some straightforward and representational, some quite abstract); figural work is one of the traditions in Indian art. Also, most circle back to the spiritual or otherworldly.
“A lot of artists use goddess images,†Dr. Brown said, including M. F. Husain in his earth-toned 1979 oil painting “Shakti,†which translates as “power.†It shows a female figure charging, arm raised, atop a lion or tiger baring ferocious teeth. Other artists “do conform to our stereotypes of India - the saffron-robed monastic images.â€
But what separates the often large-scale, colorful works from one another and also anchors them to modernity is the way the painters, who represent a multitude of regions and religions, explore what it means to be human.
Sometimes, as in Sakti Burman's 2008 watercolor “Durga,†mortals and deities rub elbows. “He uses a goddess image, but he brings it back to earth,†by depicting the familiar many-armed goddess Durga at the forefront of the picture but situating an ordinary young girl wearing glasses and reading a book by her side, Dr. Brown said. Together, the images of the everyday and the exalted “form a statement about the modern world.†That is, a world in flux.
“Goddess, Lion, Peasant, Priest†made its way to the College of New Jersey by way of a musical event. Last year, the college booked a tabla performance by Abhijit Banerjee and the Tarang Ensemble, which took place last month as part of a daylong symposium on contemporary Indian culture.
John C. Laughton, dean of the School of the Arts and Communication, “mentioned the performance to me and said, ‘Wouldn't it be nice to have an exhibition of contemporary Indian art to go along with it?' So I started to see what might be possible,†said Emily Croll, the art gallery director, during a tour of the show on Wednesday. The exhibition runs through Dec. 16.
Ms. Croll collaborated with Deborah Hutton, an associate professor of art history at the College of New Jersey and a colleague of Dr. Brown's from graduate school at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Brown connected Dr. Hutton and Ms. Croll with Donald Rubin.
Mr. Rubin and his wife, Shelley, are collectors, based in Manhattan, who made “Goddess, Lion, Peasant, Priest†possible; all the works in the show are on loan from the Shelley and Donald Rubin Private Collection. The Rubins are the founders of the Rubin Museum of Art in Manhattan as well as the Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation.
Dr. Brown's original assemblage of more than 50 paintings and sculptures for the Atlanta exhibition was culled from more than 500 pieces of contemporary and modern Indian art in the private collection, said Rachel Weingeist, senior adviser to Mr. and Mrs. Rubin.
The 22 chosen for the smaller New Jersey show by Dr. Hutton and Ms. Croll were to be “representative of works from across the decades,†Ms. Croll said, adding, “But we also selected the works that we thought were the strongest.â€
They include an untitled 2007 mixed-media work by Seema Kohli that Ms. Weingeist, of Manhattan, said was “definitely one of Donald's favorites.†In it, a mermaidlike goddess with a vividly royal-blue body emerges from a mythical hybrid beast, trailed by a flowing river.
In the few weeks since the exhibition opened, students and other curious visitors have gravitated toward paintings based on their own predilections and proclivities, said Ms. Croll, of Princeton.
“Some are more drawn to religious imagery, and others seem compelled by the images of strong women or other subjects. There's a lot of content in the paintings - you can look deeply at them in terms of imagery and symbolism,†she said.
Contemporary Indian art may be having a moment of sorts. The Rubin Museum is scheduled to open “Modernist Art From India: Radical Terrain,†the final exhibition of a three-part series, on Nov. 9. And the Queens Museum of Art is planning what Ms. Weingeist called “an enormous exhibition†about contemporary and modern Indian art, for which the dates are still tentative.
“The timing couldn't be better for the New Jersey show,†Ms. Weingeist said. “Indian art is hot right now.â€
“Goddess, Lion, Peasant, Priest: Modern and Contemporary Indian Art From the Shelley and Donald Rubin Private Collection,†through Dec. 16 at the College of New Jersey Art Gallery, 2000 Pennington Road, Ewing; open Tuesday through Thursday, noon to 7 p.m., and Sunday, 1 to 3 p.m. tcnj.edu/artgallery or (609) 771-2633.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: November 4, 2012
An earlier version of the picture credits in this story misspelled the first name of one of the people who provided the photographs to The Times. She is Shelley Rubin, not Shelly.
