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Abstract

This dissertation is an ethnographic exploration of contemporary art in Kolkata. It closely follows several individual artists and art groups who endeavour to defy established conventions and create new works of art. Yet, confronted with a new work of art, a doubt sets in. Wasn’t this made before? Can we be sure that it’s not a copy? The doubt of novelty and originality has always troubled the visual arts, and was particularly pronounced in (post)colonial Calcutta, where works were condemned by some as belated repetitions of European modern art. Convictions of belatedness have been successfully debunked, but with the emergence of ‘contemporary’ art the doubt of novelty emerges yet again. To understand the predicament of artistic novelty this dissertation unfolds a cyclical ritual theory of contemporary art that includes the practices surrounding the artwork, while not forgetting the artwork itself – an analysis that involves the entire set of practices implicated in the production, exhibition, circulation, and preservation of art. This theory is subsequently applied to the field of contemporary art in Kolkata. The ethnographic chapters focus on the tension between artistic attempts to make new works of art and the various limitations that artists encounter; artists are not just caught up in artistic conventions, but are simultaneously impeded by limited economic means and trapped in a peripheral position where they always seem to lag behind, caught up in a city that doesn’t seem to live up to its own history. Yet, by making ambiguous works that resonate with the city in various ways, artists defy conventions, bypass limitations, and offer moments in which the world can be experienced anew.