Thursday, May 19, 2011
2:00 p.m.
Research Institute Lecture Hall
The Getty Center

As part of the Getty Research Institute's 2010–11 Scholars Program research theme, "The Display of Art," this roundtable discussion addresses issues surrounding the display of premodern to contemporary Indian art in museums in and outside of the Indian subcontinent. Presenters offer original research that reflects the various strategies and forces that impact exhibition.

Participants explore the following questions:

• What challenges and innovations are presently observed in relation to the display of art from the Indian subcontinent?


• What are some of the most pertinent implications of colonial and postcolonial history for various art historical fields? What is the enduring effect of the Indian museum's colonial origins?


• How have the contexts of display of Indian art contributed to the divergent histories of South Asian nations since India's independence in 1947? What has been the role of museum collections in the competing definitions of Indian and Pakistani history and nationhood?


• How have exhibition and display practices influenced or shaped the field of contemporary art? How have contemporary artists in turn responded to the museum in their art? What possibilities can emerge from such a dialogue between institutions and artists?

Confirmed Participants:

Frederick Asher (Professor of Art History, University of Minnesota)
Richard Davis (Professor and Chair of Religion and Asian Studies, Bard College, NY)
Atreyee Gupta (Getty Predoctoral Fellow, University of Minnesota)
Saloni Mathur (Getty Scholar, Professor of Art History, UCLA)
Kristy Phillips (Lecturer, San Jose State University)
Ajay Sinha (Professor of Art History, Mount Holyoke, MA)
Tim Winter (Getty Scholar, Research Fellow, Department of Sociology, University of Sydney)