Migrants and Strangers in an Intractable Time: 19th-century South Asian Art from Mia’s Collection

The 1800s were an intractable time. Rapid transformations in technology and industry brought about new ways of seeing and making art. Commercially produced pigments, photography, and the global movement of objects, ideas, and people left no part of the world unchanged. As patronage structures crumbled, Indian artists migrated from princely courts to new urban centers such as Bombay and Calcutta. British and American artists also traveled to India in pursuit of new markets and ideas. The encounters between migrants and strangers not only transformed the visual worlds of South Asia but also percolated to Europe, North America, and other parts of Asia. Drawing on Mia’s collection, this talk re-stages the meeting of migrants and strangers in the urban metropolitan centers of India and chronicles a global history of 19th-century South Asian art.

Atreyee Gupta, PhD, is Jane Emison Assistant Curator of South and Southeast Asian Art at Mia. Her area of expertise is global Modernism, with a special emphasis on the global aesthetic and intellectual flows that have cut across Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America from the 20th century onwards. A reception will follow.

This lecture is made possible by the generous support of the Elsa Carpenter Asian Art Lecture Fund. Generous support for this program is provided by the Gale Family Endowment.

 

$10; $5 Mia members, free for Asian Art Affinity Group members

To register, call 612.870.6323 or reserve online.