In Search Of The Vernacular: Post-Independence Indian & Pakistani Masters November 12th - December 12th 2009 Aicon Gallery 35 Great Jones St New York 10012 T: 212 725 6092 www.aicongallery.com

Since the beginning of the 20th century Indian artists have attempted to articulate a vernacular visual language. This has often taken the form of taking Western art as something which had to be either rejected outright, or significantly changed in order to address an Indian vernacular. This survey exhibition attempts to tease out a complex pattern of rejection, influence and echoing between artists working in Indian and Western Modernism. Featured in the exhibition are the works of M. F. Husain, Jamini Roy, Anjolie Ela Menon, Bikash Bhattacharjee, Abindranath Tagore, Nadalal Bose, Sadequain, F. N. Souza, Jagdish Swaminathan, S. H. Raza and Laxma Goud.

Abanindranath Tagore deliberately sought an indigenous style through firstly referencing the Mughal manner and subsequently through the development of a pan-Asian style. This attempt to create an 'oriental art' very deliberately was positioned in opposition to occidental art.

Another example is Jamini Roy who initially produced works in a hybridized post-impressionist style that echoed Seurat and Van Gogh before turning away from that and towards the paintings made outside Kalighat temples. Roy's turn away from Western Modernism is a very pronounced one, yet paradoxically it is then possible to read his subsequent development in parallel to Modernism's increasing move towards a flattened picture plane. So somewhat paradoxically, in turning away from Western Modernism in order to articulate a new vernacular tradition, Roy in fact aligned himself with Modernism's stripping back of ornament in favor of line and color planes.

Utilizing Western Modernism but yoked to Indian subject matter was a strategy that was used by a number of artists who followed Jamini Roy, including F.N. Souza and M.F Husain. They and other artists associated with the Progressive Artists' Group looked towards Western Modernism but attempted to make it specific to India, often foregrounding rural inhabitants of India as a way to picture the life of the nation. However the complexity of this must be unpicked many Modernist artists working in the West, such as Picasso and Matisse. They deliberately drew on non-Western sources - this phenomenon has become known as 'Primitivism' and has been much debated.