A major exhibition of Indian contemporary art, featuring no less than 50 artists from all over the country, is on at the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum of the State University of New Jersey in the US from April 7 till July 31 this year. This is definitely an important exhibition as the last major show of contemporary Indian art was held at the Smithsonian?s Hirshorn Museum Washington DC in 1982.

?The Great Divide,? a painting by Arpana Caur in collaboration with folk artist Pande

It was purely a diplomatic affair with the art establishment of the US describing Indian contemporary art as ?caught in crisis,? ?Wild styles patterned after famous French, English and German modernists? and stating that ?Diplomacy aside, Americans will have difficulty knowing in what context a similar show until the present one.?

So, how has the present exhibition come about? It is thanks to the NRIs. The majority of the works are from their collections. Of the 23 collections the works are from, 16 are those that belong to NRIs. Also the show curation was co-chaired by the NRI collectors, Umesh and Sunanda Gaur, who approached the Museum, which happens to be situated in the area that represents the largest concentration of NRIs in the US. So, we can see the emergence of a less hide-bound globalisation, thanks to this development, of NRI culture, in the ?belly of the beast? that was doing its utmost to purvey its standardised culture as world culture. But history deals summarily with delusions of grandeur. And this exhibition does that effectively enough for American snobbery.

The irreverence that Indian contemporary art exhibits is amply in evidence here. The Mahabharat series of MF Husain (especially an ink and watercolour drawing of Ravana being confronted by Hanuman with a nude form of Sita sitting with her back to him, which drew ire from the Sanskar Bharati and Bajrang Dal) shows how our contemporary art attempts to save our ancient literature by ridding it of its sanctity and giving it a live, human presence. In the catalogue, as in the diatribes of the Sangh Pariwar, Sita is said to be seated on Rama?s thigh. But those who look at the work closely will realise she is seated at the back, looking away from him, but this tromp l?oeil is there to shock the viewer to enter the two dimensional space where a primeval confronts the sophisticated ?man of many masks? and exposes his Achilles heel, represented by Sita. This is a particularly sharp indictment of caste society, for here Ravana is merely a hypocritical Brahmin posing as a pillar of society while his appetites cross the borders of caste in search of objects of his lust. This work is part of the Chester Herwits collection, which comprises over 3,000 works.

The same decadence oozes out of Jogan Choudhury?s middle-aged woman waiting for her lover with a faded flower. Here again, not only is the 18th century Nayika concept lampooned, but also a comment is made on the rich widow of today who is free to buy lovers but who abandon her once the price is paid. This work is also from the Herwitz collection and is significant as it reflects how romanticism is dead in the contemporary world and in its art.

The cry for reviving romanticism comes out in Manjit Bawa?s distortion of the Kali-Shiva image–a young modern woman reclining against a bolster, giving life to the languishing male under her feet. It is a helpless cry from a male-oriented world unable to cope with women who are independent and assertive. This work is from the collection of Sharad and Mohinder Tak. The other side of the coin is the ?Banyan Tree,? also from the Tak collection an oil on canvas by Bhupen Khakhar which shows the ordinary male in a patriarchal society, (under the shade of the banyan, the super male), seeking solace in the company of other men as women are the privileged property of the powerful. The woman?s eye-view of this phenomenon can be seen in Arpita Singh?s painting, ?Munna Appa?s Kitchen,? where women drudge and mourn while the male is a sleeping or a dead figure, oblivious to what goes on in the house-a distant ?lord and master.? This work is from the Rajeev Chowdhury?s collection.

More savage images of power are reflected in FN Souza?s ?Butcher? (from Kamla Choudry?s collection), Bikash Bhattacharjee?s ?In His Office,? (from the collection of Umesh and Sunanda Gaur) and Ganesh Pyne?s ?merchant of death,? also from the Herwitz collection. On the other hand, the victim hero of bad times comes out sharply in A Ramachandran?s ?Last Supper? (from the collection of Navin Kumar), the worker falling to his death in Sudhir Patwardhan?s the ?Fall? (Ravi and Virginia Akhoury?s collection), or the Bhagat Singh, Mahatma Gandhi duo, both victims of the colonial and divisive forces that engineered the break up of India, in the collaborative work of Aparna Caur, ?The Great Divide?( From the Tak collection), reminding one that the real division is not between Bhagat Singh (as violent) and Gandhi (as non-violent), but between the two fighters against colonial rule on the one hand, and the imperialist and communalist violence mongers on the other, represented by trains going in opposite directions on tracks of blood.

There are many other works questioning the vision of conventional India in this exhibition, reminding one that art is not decoration of lull the mind, even at its most abstract, as in the works of Gaitonde in this exhibition, if it does one thing it certainly reminds one, that Indian contemporary art, in the words of FN. Souza ??has evolved over the years of its own volition, out of our own balls and brains.?? Or, as Rabindranath Tagore put it, ??Modernism is not the dress of the Europeans… True modernism is freedom of the mind, not slavery of taste. It is independence of thought and action, not tutelage under European school masters.?? That is why it is set storm the citadels of an American establishment with works like Jitish Kallat?s ?Anger at the Speed of Fright,? at a time when its self-confidence is shaken by events of history that have over taken it and made other investments more worth while. But, seeing this exhibition, one must warn the Indian investor not to stock calendar gods he chose his works of Husain and Pyne. Otherwise they may find themselves burdened with a lot of unwanted baggage.