Gandhi in the Gallery: The Art of Disobedience

Time: Nov. 13, 2019, 2:15 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.

Location: Peter Graham Scholarly Commons, 114 Bird Library

Sumathi Ramaswamy (Duke University)

Mohandas K. Gandhi has been described as “an artist of non-violence,” crafting a set of practices of the self and politics that earned him the mantle of Mahātma, “the great soul.” There is an enormous body of scholarship that has explored and critiqued Gandhi’s philosophy and praxis of satyāgraha, non-violent civil disobedience. Yet what does it mean to think of satyāgraha as an aesthetic regime, and its principal exponent as the paradigmatic artist of disobedience?

In this presentation, prof Ramaswamy sets out to answer these questions with the help of India’s modern artists who have turned to the Mahātma as their muse over the past century, but especially in recent decades.

Additional supporters:

• South Asia Center
• Department of Art and Music Histories
• Syracuse University Libraries
• Department of History
• Department of Photography
• Department of Magazine, News and Digital Journalism
• Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies
• Light Work

Carol Babiracki, Romita Ray, South Asia Center