Art Objects in a Postmodern Age

Convener: Prashant Parikh
Co-advisors: Timothy Hyman and Geeta Kapur
Speakers: Andreas Huyssen, Ashish Rajadhyaksha, Avani Parikh, Ayisha Abraham, Colin Richards, Deepak Ananth, Geeta Kapur, Kumar Shahani, Laleen Jaymanne, Ranjit Hoskote, Sudhir Patwardhan, Veena Das, and Vivan Sundaram
Chairs: Anita Dube, Adil Jussawala, Arun Khopkar, Amit Mukhopadhyay, Avani Parikh, Gieve Patel, N. Pushpamala, and R. Sivakumar.

February 23 to 25, 1996 | 10.00 am to 6.00 pm
Little Theatre, National Centre for the Performing Arts, Mumbai

Concept Note: Prashant Parikh

The goal of the conference is twofold: to explore the situation of painting today and to examine its context of postmodernism. One way to conduct this study is to look closely at specific problems that arise in this context. The problem of fictive space is one such problem. The transformation of works of art into texts is another. One problem comes primarily from art, the other primarily from the discourse about art. In both we see certain changes at work, changes that imply the emergence of postmodernism. The note ends with a partial theorization of postmodernism itself. This draws upon Wittgenstein’s idea of family resemblances.