Naman P. Ahuja is Professor of Indian Art and Architecture at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His research and graduate teaching focus on periods of artistic / visual exchange in pre-modern societies like ancient Gandhara on the borderlands of Afghanistan and Punjab and in the manuscripts painted in the Sultanate period in India. His studies on early Indian terracottas, ivories and small finds have drawn attention to unique sources for Indian history that reveal much about the private world of Ancient Indians. These objects tell us much about the trade and ritual cultures from a domestic sphere rather than what is normally understood only through public monuments. His book, The Making of the Modern Indian Artist-Craftsman: Devi Prasad (Routledge, 2011), explored the formation of the Arts and Crafts Movement and how it, in turn impacted the aesthetic and political influences of Coomaraswamy, Gandhi and Tagore as shown in the pedagogy of the institutions of Santiniketan and Sevagram. Some of his other publications include: Divine Presence, The Arts of India and the Himalayas (Five continents editions, Milan, 2003, translated into Catalan and Spanish) and The Body in Indian Art and Thought (Ludion, Antwerp, 2013, also available in French and Dutch).

He has held Fellowships, Visiting Professorships and curatorial charges at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, The British Museum, the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of Zurich, the Kusnthistorisches Institut in Florence, amongst others. He has curated various acclaimed exhibitions, the most recent of which, The Body in Indian Art was shown at the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels for Europalia.13 and at the National Museum, New Delhi.

“The formation of identity and the self are fundamental to the role of the museum, and the Body stands as a concept at its epicentre.” In this article, Naman P. Ahuja draws a continuum between classical and contemporary art while drawing from multiple strands of Indian art history.

To read the full essay Click Here

read more

The Body Redux: A Curator’s Post-script on Exhibiting India

NOTICEBOARD

RECOMMENDED