5 April 2019 | New Delhi
Since the 1990s, artists in India have been energized by diverse forms of installation art. Taking into account theorization and critical apparatuses as central to this practice, this event aimed at an expansion of the discourse around installation art. Definitional propositions sharpen the premise of installation art; it asks to be articulated in terms of (historical) contexts and (contemporary) conjunctures. Yet, paradoxically, it is the unpredictable that characterizes the conception and construct of an installation.
Developing heterogeneously, as it should, installation art in India is still disadvantaged by limited infrastructural and institutional support. This discussion sought to facilitate a deeper understanding of the practice with a view to expanding the support base for installation art projects.
The event on April 5 was an intensive five-hour symposium, structured around brief presentations by artists and critics of One Core Idea / One Conceptual Point / One Artwork. It was organised as four sessions:
The middle session, included a longer presentation by Patrick Flores, titled Installative/Inter-national: Some Trajectories to Consider. Here, he spoke about what he calls the installative problematic in terms of context, and of particular and partial representation that needs to be supplemented – via the vaster ecology of intersubjectivities. The symposium invited short-form, conceptual presentations from artists which were then further cross-referenced by the moderators to set up a dialogue.
PROGRAMME
Introduction
Geeta Kapur
Session I
Framing an Idea
Jitish Kallat
Nancy Adajania
Vivan Sundaram
Moderated by Gayatri Sinha
Session II
Installative/Inter-national: Some Trajectories to Consider
Patrick Flores
Moderated by Nancy Adajania
Session III
Immersive/Temporal
Sheba Chhachhi
Pallavi Paul
Sonia Khurana
Moderated by Latika Gupta
Session IV
Out There
Akansha Rastogi
Sharmila Samant
Pooja Sood
Jitish Kallat
Vishal K. Dar
Moderated by Geeta Kapur