JCAF Lecture – Strange Kinships: Amrita Sher-Gil’s Art Across Continents

Name: JCAF Lecture – Strange Kinships: Amrita Sher-Gil’s Art Across Continents
Start: 2022-05-31
End: 2022-06-08
Location: Joburg Contemporary Art Foundation (JCAF)

Tuesday May 31 - Wednesday Jun 8 1 Durris Rd, Forest Town

Amrita Sher-Gil

This winter Joburg Contemporary Art Foundation (more commonly known as JCAF) launches its School of the South lecture series. The series sees leading academics from across the world coming to Joburg to discuss the life and works of three important female artists from the Global South; Indian artist Amrita Sher-Gil (1913–1941), Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (1907-1950) and South Africa's Irma Stern (1894–1966). The lecture series is part of the build-up to a phenomenal exhibition taking place at JCAF later in the year featuring the work of these three iconic artists.

To host the School of the South, JCAF has constructed The Forum, a new purpose-built amphitheater at their building in Forest Town that is conceived of as a communal space for the exchange of ideas. Following each live lecture at The Forum, HD screenings of the lectures will be shown at this new space at JCAF and visitors can book to attend one of the free viewings online via the JCAF website.

Strange Kinships: Amrita Sher-Gil’s Art Across Continents

The first lecture in the series focuses on the work of Amrita Sher-Gil (1913–1941), a woman artist who critics and artists in modern India often refer to as one of the “creative men” of Indian art and the most “masculine” of Indian painters.Sher-Gil is widely considered as one of the most influential and important Indian artists of the 20th Century and the year 2013 was declared the international year of Amrita Sher-Gil by UNESCO in honour of her 100th birthday.

Leading the lecture is Sonal Khullar is W. Norman Brown Associate Professor of South Asian Studies in the Department of the History of Art at the University of Pennsylvania. In this fascinating talk Khullar contemplates the controversial language that surrounds Sher-Gil’s practice and situates her art within histories of anti-colonial nationalism, modernist cosmopolitanism and transnational movements in the Global South. Looking closely at the context in which Sher-Gil worked and lived, Khullar explores how we understand Sher-Gil's career as an artist in light of the racialised, classed, gendered and sexualised language that surrounds it.

How to book to watch the lecture at The Forum

The lecture is screening at JCAF at 11:00, 13:00 and 15:00 between May 31 to June 8 (no screenings on Sundays and Mondays). Note that space is limited and we highly recommended booking well in advance so as not to miss out on getting a space. Book online for free at jcaf.org.za/visit/.