Art attacks : violence and offence-taking in India / Malvika Maheshwari.

First edition.

New Delhi, India : Oxford University Press, 2019.

©2019.

xii, 372 pages ; 23 cm.

Since the end of the 1980s in India, self-styled representatives of a variety of ascriptive groups (religious, caste, regional, and linguistic among others) have come to routinely damage artwork, disrupt their exhibition, and threaten and assault artists and their supporters. Often, these acts are said to be a protest against the allegedly 'hurtful' or 'offensive' artworks. They are even claimed to be a prescient call to save the identity of the community, in a manner that makes the communal identities hinge entirely on that artistic (mis)representation. Yet, at the time of these attacks, many who indulge in this kind of violence have seldom heard of the artist before or even seen, read, watched, let alone engaged with the artwork. Such is the wrench on the right to freedom of speech and expression in general, and on the physical safety and security of artists in particular, that has inspired fear, anger, and discomfort within the art world, marked by ominous declarations of a 'cultural emergency' owing to the loss of lives and property, and without the due processes of law-a consequence that was hardly synonymous with art practice in India, at least until a few decades ago.0This book tells the story of violence against artists in India, marked by the intensifying sense of insecurity, fear, frustration and anger within the art world.

English

June 11, 2019

Includes bibliographical references and index.