Multiple Indias: a traveling show of contemporary Indian art, now at Rutgers, addresses political, social and personal issues on the subcontinent

Of particular interest is the varied work of Subodh Gupta, a well-known figure in contemporary Indian art, represented here by two pieces. Both works draw on the notion of the sacred cow (or kamadhenu) in Hindu religion and its central role in rural Indian life. A sculpture titled Three Cows (2003) does so quite literally by casting in bronze the bicycles and pails used to deliver milk. This rather tongue-in-cheek spin on the readymade retains the metaphoric and symbolic associations of fecundity and prosperity, taken to an almost absurdist extreme in the video Pure (2000), where we witness the artist showering in cow dung. In India, cow dung is used as fuel, as fertilizer, as building material and as a cleansing agent; it is also a symbol of purity.

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New Parables

Works like Gupta's and others that look to the role of ritual and tradition in contemporary life create a transition to the exhibition's final theme, Looking Backward: Interpreting Texts. Artists in this smaller section reinterpret poetry, historical documents and mythical tales to create new parables more in sync with the realities of today's India.

Striking is Sheba Chhachhi's installation Neelkanth (Blue Throat): poison/nectar (2002), a Boltanski-esque environment utilizing illuminated photographs. Within a darkened room rise thin aluminum towers, each bearing on top a miniature photo of a sense organ (for example, ears or eyes), that together form an ominous cityscape. A light box with a photograph of a landfill occupies each corner, and on the floor at center is a flat-screen TV showing a throat that appears to swallow the garbage projected in the corners. Chhachhi's work is based on an ancient Indian myth in which Shiva swallows a poison created by the greed of demons and gods. The artist recasts the myth as an allegory of the negative impact of rampant modernization upon India's urban centers and rural environment.

The female heroines who occupy the richly saturated figurative paintings that Malani makes in addition to her video installations derive from Eastern and Western literature (for example, Radha, the Hindu god Krishna's lover, and Lewis Carroll's Alice). However, Malani's female characters are seen as victims of male oppression rather than as symbols of courage and strength. Rendered mainly in watercolors, acrylics and enamels on Mylar in a style reminiscent of Francesco Clemente's borrowings from Indian art, they inhabit cell-like grids or ambiguous grounds that reinforce their sense of entrapment.

Three paintings from Reena Saini Kallat's series "Sword Swallower" (2004) combine contemporary portraits of everyday citizens (a Muslim man, a woman, a young boy) and scenes of warring demons from Indian mythology, in a commentary on the impact of centuries of violence upon the present. Atul Dodiya's installation Devoured Darkness (2006) was created in response to the violence in Gujarat, but it looks to the past for understanding and solace. Comprising three large gallows, the work takes its title from a line in a poem by Allama erabhu, a medieval poet-saint who called for an inclusive spiritual practice, available to all. (6) Portions of Prabhu's verse appear in three large panels, along with drawn and collaged images by Dodiya, each placed to the right of one of the gallows. To the left of each is a small mirror that frames the viewer's face, a surface offered for further reflection and a foil that implicates us all.