CONTOURS OF MODERNITY
AN EXHIBITION OF CONTEMPORARY INDIAN ART

Curated by Debashish Banerji and Nalini Rao

Contours of Modernity was an exhibition of contemporay Indian Art held at the Founder's Hall of SOKA University in Aliso Viejo, CA. from Feb.1- April 1 2005

The exhibition featured works from the 1970's to the present by twenty leading artists from India and of Indian origin. The first of its kind in Southern California, the artists whose works were displayed here included celebrated founders of modern Indian art such as M.F. Husian, S.H. Raza, F.N. Souza, Ram Kumar, Ganesh Pyne, Ramananda Bandyopadhyay and G.R. Santosh, younger leading contemporaries such as Rameshwar Broota, T. Vaikuntham, Anjolie Ela Menon, Vasundhara Tewari, Surender Kaur, Bikash Bhattacharjee, Sohan Qadri, Anjan Chakrabarty,Biswarup Datta and Paresh Maity and diasporic artists such as Allan DeSouza, Sudha Achar and Amrita Banerji.

The intent of the exhibition was to engage its audience in a selective discourse on contemporary Indian Art. The works displayed were representative of an international dialog with modernity, with its critical dimensions of displacement of culture, technological alientation, commercialism, mass conditioning, globalization and future possibilities. These issues and themes such as the realities of the self, urban and social landscape and the powers of myth were artistically represented through visual imagery.

The artists displayed were all well recognized for their contribution in weaving the fabric of modernity with regional and international threads to create a context that becomes socially relevant and embodies living aesthetic values. The works informed an intellectual and visual experience with a sense of socio-cultural affirmation,  syncretic spontaneity for life, hope and regeneration and provided approaches towards understanding new ways of being modern in a global world.