A fragile inheritance: Radical stakes in contemporary Indian art

_ART HISTORY_A FRAGILE INHERITANCE: RADICAL STAKES IN CONTEMPORARY INDIAN ART PROFESSOR SALONI MATHUR | UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES This lecture will explore three recent projects by the Delhi-based artist, Vivan Sundaram, a leading figure of the post-1968 Indian avant-garde and a veteran of critical art practice in the subcontinent. In the first of these projects (Trash, 2008), the artist embraces garbage as a medium. In the latter two (Gagawaka, 2011/12 and Postmortem-After Gagawaka, 2013), he constructs wearable sculptural garments made from recyclables and found objects, and surrealist-like assemblages composed of aged mannequins and anatomical models. These three projects together highlight the lightness of fashion, consumerism and haute-couture alongside the heaviness of social concerns related to illness, aging, death and the urban environment under threat. As such, I suggest they demonstrate the unique breadth and maturity of Sundaram’s work, and sketch a model of radical practice that responds, more urgently than ever, to the specific conditions of the present era. _SALONI MATHUR is Professor of Art History at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is author of _India by Design: Colonial History and Cultural Display_ (UC Press, 2007), editor of _The Migrant’s Time: Rethinking Art History and Diaspora_ (Yale University Press/Clark Art Institute, 2011), and co-editor (with Kavita Singh) of _No Touching, No Spitting, No Praying: The Museum in South Asia_ (Routledge, 2014). _ _Her new book, _A FRAGILE INHERITANCE: RADICAL STAKES IN CONTEMPORARY INDIAN ART_, is scheduled for release by Duke University Press in September 2019._