Assistant Professor,
School of Culture and Creative Expressions
PhD (Visual Art), School of Culture and Creative Expressions, Ambedkar University Delhi
Dr. Santhosh Sadanandan is an art historian and cultural theorist based in New Delhi. He is trained in Art History and Criticism with BFA and MFA degrees from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. He received his PhD in Visual Art from the School of Culture and Creative Expressions (SCCE), Ambedkar University Delhi. His doctoral thesis was titled ‘Spectres of Caste: Institutionalisation of Art in Modern India.’ It examined various aspects of the institutionalisation of culture and the role that categories such as caste played in the structuration of artistic production in modern India.
One of the founding members of SCCE, he has been a part of the team that developed a vision document for the School. He has been a visiting faculty member for the Post Graduate Diploma in Modern and Contemporary Indian Art and Curatorial Studies conducted by the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai since 2015. He was one of the Project Directors of a series of workshops on curation titled, Curating Indian Visual Culture: Theory and Practice. These travelling workshops were held between 2010 and 2013 at Vadodara, Kochi, Hyderabad, Jammu, and New Delhi. He is one of the co-editors of a three-volume publication on art writing in the subcontinent initiated by Asia Art Archive titled ‘Dossier One: Fictional Configurations’ (2017), ‘Dossier Two: Future Perfect’ (forthcoming 2019), and ‘Dossier Three: Destination Horizon’ (forthcoming 2019).
He has also contributed essays to journals, catalogues, and other important academic publications such as EPW, Social Scientist, and India Seminar. He has presented papers in national and international seminars, some of the most recent of which include Pedagogical Influx and the Art of Education (Students’ Biennale, Kochi-Muziris Biennale, 2019), It Begins with a Story: Focal Point Edition (Sharjah Art Foundation and Asia Art Archive, 2018), What Time Is It: Technologies of Life in the Contemporary (Sarai-CSDS, Goethe-Institut Delhi, 2017) and Latento: Considering the Potential of the Contemporary Moment (School of Intermedia Art, China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, 2017).
Dr. Sadanandan has taught Art History for two years from 2005-2007 at the Department of Art History and Aesthetics, Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University of Baroda. Following this, he taught Art History for two years from 2009-2011 as guest faculty at the School of Art and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He also worked as an Academic Fellow for SCCE, AUD from 2011-2012, before joining as an Assistant Professor in the same School.
His areas of interest are Critical Theory and Philosophy.
Books (edited)
(2017) Dossier One: Fictional Configurations, New Delhi: Asia Art Archive, co-edited with Vidya Shivadas, Sneha Ragavan and Sabih Ahmed.
[Forthcoming, 2019] Dossier Two: Future Perfect and Dossier Three: Destination Horizon, New Delhi: Asia Art Archive, co-edited with Vidya Shivadas, Sneha Ragavan and Sabih Ahmed.
Select Academic Publications (Essays and Articles)
(forthcoming, July 2019) “Dalitization of Politics and Some Ruminations on the Commons” in Manas Ray ed., State of Democracy in India: Essays on Life and Politics in Contemporary Times, New Delhi: Primus.
(2017) “Dalitization of Politics and the Suicide Note of Rohith Vemula,” Seminar, 691 Special issue on Containing Violence (March 2017)
(2016) "Questions on the Technologies of Fascism: Making the 'Modi Effect'," Economic and Political Weekly, 51: 3 (January 16, 2016)
(2015) "City as Metaphor: An Archaeology of Contemporary Artistic Production and Display," in Priya Maholay-Jaradi ed., Baroda: A Cosmopolitan Provenance in Transition, Mumbai: Marg Publications, pp. 106-119. ISBN: 938324308-2
(2015) "Tense - Past Continuous: Some Critical Reflections on the Art of Savi Sawarkar," in Joshil K. Abraham and Judith Misrahi-Barak eds., Dalit Literatures in India, New Delhi: Routledge, pp. 309-319. ISBN: 978-1-138-19131-0
(2012) “What was Modernism (in Indian Art)?” Social Scientist, Vol. 40, Nos. 5-6, May-June.
(2012) “Specters of Radicals or Where Have All the Radical’s Gone” in Deeptha Achar and Shivaji K. Panikkar eds., Articulating Resistance: Art and Activism in India, Tulika Publications, New Delhi.
(2012) “Mapping the Trajectories of a Minoritarian Aesthetics and Cultural Politics”, in Parul Dave Mukherji, Kavita Singh, and Naman Ahuja eds., In-flux: Asian Contemporary Art, Sage Publications, New Delhi.
(2009) “About the (not so) Fine Art of Protest’, Art Etc. Magazine, Special Issue on Protest Art, Vol. 1 No.2.
(2008) "Adhunikatvathinteyum Desiyathayudayum Ashanti-Niketanangal" (The Un-Peaceful Institution of Modernity and Nationalism) in Akhyanathile Apara Sthalikal (The Other Spaces of Narration), edited by Arun A., Subject and Language Press, Kottayam. (Malayalam)
(2005) “Hegemony Maintenance in the Process of Inclusion: Pahari and Rajput Paintings” in Art of Medieval India: Contextualizing Social Relations, Shivaji K. Panikkar and Abha Sheth eds.,, M.S. University Press, Baroda.
(2004) “Towards an ‘Anti-History’ of Indian Art: Nationalism and Modernity” Nandan: an Annual of Kala Bhavana, edited by Sanjoy Mallik, Visva Bharati, Santiniketan.
(2004) Translated Dipesh Chakrabarty’s "Minority Histories, Subaltern Pasts" from his book Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2001 with P. J. Benoy for the selected volume of Subaltern Studies in Malayalam, edited by Susie Tharu and S. Sanjeev, published by D.C.Books, Kottayam.
Other Publications (Online Magazines)
(2018) “Politicising Sadness and Angst” Raiot.in February 5, 2018.
http://www.raiot.in/politicising-sadness-and-angst/ Last accessed 05 May 2019
(2016) "Dalit Politics and/as the Future of Politics," Raiot.in April 22, 2016. www.raiot.in/dalit-politics-andas-the-future-of-politics/ Last accessed 20 May 2016
Other Publications (Catalogue Essays for Art Exhibitions)
Book Reviews
Erjavec, Ales, ed. Posmodernism and the Postsocialist Condition: Politicized Art Under Late Socialism, University of California Press, 2005. Review published in Journal of Contemporary Thought, No: 22, Winter, 2005.
Professional Activities
List of Conferences, Seminars and Workshops Organized