Indian Art - Contemporary Art

Contemporary Art

From the 1990s onwards, Indian artists began to increase the forms they used in their work. Painting and sculpture remained important, though in the work of leading artists such as Subodh Gupta, Narayanan Ramachandran, Vivan Sundaram, Jitish Kallat, they often found radical new directions. Bharti Dayal has chosen to handle the traditional Mithila painting in most contemporary way and created her own style through the exercises of her own imagination, they appear fresh and unusual .

Contemporary Indian art takes influence from all over the world. With many Indian artists immigrating to the west, art for some artists has been a form of expression merging their past with their current in western culture. As Shyamal Dutta Ray was concerned about Bengal and village life, new artists like Shreya Chaturvedi feels art should speak for itself. She believes modern art must communicate with the general public, connecting to them and motivating them through some great idea or message behind it.

Also, the increase in the discourse about Indian art, in English as well as vernacular Indian languages, appropriated the way art was perceived in the art schools. Critical approach became rigorous, critics like Geeta Kapur, R . Siva Kumar,Shivaji K. Panikkar, Ranjit Hoskote, amongst others, contributed to re-thinking contemporary art practice in India. The last decade or so has also witnessed an increase in Art magazines like Art India (from Bombay), Art & Deal (New Delhi, edited and published by Siddharth Tagore), Indian Contemporary Art Journal (From Bombay - Edited and Published by Rajendra ) 'Art Etc.' (from Emami Chisel, edited by Amit Mukhopadhyay) complementing the catalogues produced by the respective galleries.