“Aesthetics is for artists as orthinology is for the birds” – Barnett Newman

Speakers: Parul Dave Mukherji and Indrapramit Roy
Discussant: Tejal Shah

November 14, 2003 | 6.30 pm
Little Theatre, National Centre for the Performing Arts, Mumbai

In the last decades, art has become so strongly enmeshed with theory that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between the two. It is within the current dominance of theory that the much-quoted comment made by an American Abstract Expressionist, Barnett Newman around 1952 can be situated. This comment can be taken not only as representative of Newman’s skepticism about theory but also paradigmatic of the American avant garde of this time. Today, Newman’s wry comment takes on more provocation and to return to Newman’s metaphor, is like setting the cat among the pigeons! It appears to have the potential of stirring a lively debate and engaging attention of artists and art historians alike. What at first glance seems to be an enigmatic equation between art and science, on closer scrutiny appears to be directed at Newman’s opponents, art critics and aestheticians, particularly those who brought the research in semiotics and linguistics to bear upon aesthetics – Susan Langer in particular.

Indrapramit Roy, Lecturer at the Dept. of Painting, Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University, Baroda will respond to this comment from a point of view of a practicing artist as a point of departure towards examining the role of theory in his own pedagogic practice.

Parul Dave Mukherji, Associate Professor in Art History and Aesthetics, Dept. of Art History, M.S. University, Baroda will explore the specific notion of authenticity and artist’s subjectivity that comes into play in Newman’s writings and its relevance today.

The session will be moderated by the artist, Tejal Shah, who has studied art in the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.