School of Arts and Aesthetics, JNU, presents, A Recalcitrant Aesthetics : Body, Revolution and the Nation Reimagined by Vikrant Bhise. The show explores how the language of Indian art echoes with silences.
In recent years, scholars have elaborated on how the development of the language of Indian modern art is deeply entrenched in Brahminical hegemony that eschews the Dalit artist as well as experiences of caste-based abuse and discrimination. It is this ‘criminal silence’ that has turned contemporary galleries into receptacles of “protected ignorance”, as Y.S. Alone terms it. “Words are like bullets and not a pistol used in Diwali. They should be aimed at the right place.”
Namdeo Dhasal’s fiery declaration finds new resonance in visual arts, where scholars have attempted to formulate a ‘different’ aesthetics centred around the Dalit political subject. This intervention requires more than representation; it demands a recalcitrant stance that not only deconstructs the canon of Indian modern art as we understand it but also recognises the
plurality of Dalit subjectivities.
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