On 3 December 2020, FICA hosted a virtual presentation by Ila Dalmia FICA Research Grant 2016 awardee Vasvi Oza who shared her research on art writing in regional print publications in the 20th century, especially exploring the case made for Indian modernism through written discourse. She was in conversation with researcher Noopur Desai, who was awarded the Ila Dalmia FICA Research Grant in 2015.

Awarded the Ila Dalmia FICA Research Grant 2016 for her proposed project titled ‘Print, public and the regional-modern discourse in Gujarat: a critical study of Kumar and Vrishchik as contested archives,’ Vasvi worked to re-contextualize modern art in India through a regional framework instead of a national framework and through the print medium in art writing rather than the framework of art practice and the artist figure. Focusing specifically on periodicals which had a wide audience, she has studied the different aspects of print culture especially the relationship shared between the word and the image in ascertaining the fundamental qualities of print production. Looking at Kumar and Vrishchik two important periodicals from Gujarat, she focused on the categories of artist writings on art; artist writings as such; reproduction of artworks; cover pages, para texts, print aesthetics. She also looked at some other periodicals where Gujarati artists contributed literary and visual content including Vismi Sadi, Navchetan, Samipe, Etad, Saayujya, Kshitij etc.

Periodicals have offered significantly discursive spaces for Art writings since the advent of print culture in India. While mainstream art history has offered primary scope of engagement with regards to Art Writings, regional periodical practices have introduced fascinating forms of writing and image-making through some crucial anecdotal debates/concerns/opinions regarding the role of Modern Art/Artist in the society. While conducting her research around Kumar and Vrishchik, two crucial names in the genre of artist-led periodicals from Gujarat, Vasvi came across a couple of fascinating pieces of writings in English and Gujarati during 1950s-70s, where the figure of the Modern artist gets tested against the popular sentiment of the public in the context of  a larger socio-political landscape of the time, reflecting in curious use of languages (visual and verbal) in the forms of writing/publishing. Interestingly, the figure of the Artist and Non-Artist, both played a crucial role in articulating (accusing and defending) this sentiment towards the figure of the Modern Artist. Drawing from exemplary anecdotes (in Gujarati and English) from these writings that possess both criticality and creativity within their form and ideas, Vasvi thinks around the possibilities of Art Writing today as an exercise about conversational modality in time and space.

About the speakers:

Vasvi Oza is an Artist, Researcher, Art Educator and is currently teaching at School of Arts and Sciences, Azim Premji University, Bangalore. Her practice resides at the intersection of archival research and vernacular/visual languages, with specific interest in creative pedagogy. She is exploring the possibilities of making/using/collecting Zines as a pedagogic tool within various educational settings.

Noopur Desai is an art writer and researcher writing in Marathi and English. Currently, she is a researcher at the Asia Art Archive in India and is based in New Delhi. She is the co-founder and co-editor of an online bilingual journal, Hakara which brings together various forms of creative expressions through practice-based approach, translations and new forms of writing.  She has been pursuing her doctoral studies at the School of Media and Cultural Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. Her PhD research focuses on the complex relationship between public space and contemporary art practice while focusing on Bombay/Mumbai as a case study investigating various kinds of public art practices and artistic interventions in public spaces in the form of festivals, museum practice and community-based art projects.