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AUTHORITY, AUTHORIZATION AND AUTHORSHIP IN INDIAN ART

by Debashish Banerji

© Debashish Banerji 2008

This paper looks at three instances of art belonging to different periods of Indian history and attempts to draw out the role of the artist in the performative matrix of imperial power in each case. How does imperial power use art to authorize itself in each case? In what performances are such uses embedded? What is the nature and degree of the artist’s agency in each case? What are the continuities, changes, innovations in the structural temporality of each case? These are some of the questions raised by this paper in an attempt to reflect on the changing performative space and social persona of the artist in an imperial context and finally focus on the operation of this social agency within the colonial/national interchange of the early 20th c.

Debashish Banerji completed his undergraduate studies in English Literature from the University of Bombay. He served as a cultural correspondent with some of the leading English language newspapers in India. He completed a Master’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Louisville, Kentucky and a Ph.D. in Indian Art History from the University of California, Los Angeles. From 1991 – 2005 Debashish served as president of the East-West Cultural Center in Los Angeles founded by Dr. Judith Tyberg. Debashish is part of the adjunct faculty of Pasedena City College teaching Art History. Presently, he is Educational Coordinator at the distance-learning graduate level University of Philosophical Research in Los Angeles and is Director of the International Center for Integral Studies in New Delhi