SARI Seminar Series: The Art and Life of Gulammohammed Sheikh

**ONLINE SEMINAR - This seminar will be presented online only, not in-person**

Artist, poet, teacher and art historian Gulammohammed Sheikh (1937-) has played a germinal role in the development of contemporary art in India since the early 1960s. His work has spanned painting, printmaking, digital media, sculpture and ceramics, and has been featured in major exhibitions and collections in India and around the world. Professor Sheikh taught art history and painting for over three decades at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Baroda until his retirement in 1993. He has curated significant exhibitions in India as well as the UK and Australia, and has received numerous awards and honours for his contribution to contemporary art and culture. This presentation considers the artist’s work in light of three interpretive frames: translation, polyphony and cosmopolitanism, using insights from Indic and European philosophical traditions to situate the work in historical context. It offers commentary on the significance of Sheikh’s oeuvre in light of questions that are pertinent to contemporary culture globally.

About the speaker:

Chaitanya Sambrani is Associate Professor in the Centre for Art History and Art Theory, ANU School of Art and Design. He also serves as the School’s Convenor for Higher Degrees by Research. A graduate of Baroda (MA) and ANU (PhD), Chaitanya’s work as art historian and curator seeks to interrogate relationships of belonging, nationhood and tradition in the modernist and contemporary art of South and Southeast Asia, with particular attention to India and Indonesia.

This seminar is presented by the ANU South Asia Research Institute (SARI).