Horn Please: Narratives in Contemporary Indian Art

While Western Modernism rejected narrative, and Western contemporary art is just now coming around again, India boasts a strong tradition of contemporary figurative, narrative painting. Horn Please follows the contemporary Eastern art scene from the past three decades, building out from two key points--the Radical Painters and Sculptors Association exhibitions Place for People (1982) and Question and Dialogue (1987). The former appropriated vernacular and global strategies, in work that drew as much from traditional styles as it did from the West, showcasing everyday stories; the latter rejected that line and everything commercial or Western, condensing narratives around political- and social-justice themes. Horn Please juxtaposes pieces from these seminal exhibitions with current work from the same artists, and with the work of artists too young to remember either show. Media include painting, sculpture, photography, photomontage, video, animation and installation.