ARCHIVO RESEARCH NETWORK | Visiting Researcher 2023

RASHMI VISWANATHAN

Assistant Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History

University of Hartford

↘ BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Rashmi Viswanathan is the Assistant Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History at the University of Hartford. She focuses on modern histories of transnational exchange in the arts, with a focus on South Asia.

Research Interests

Viswanathan studies the theaters within which modern canons are formed. She looks at the players who produce, sponsor, promote, or otherwise play a role in the formation of representational discourses, and the contexts within which those representational practices are enshrined as Modern canons. Consequently, her interests are interdisciplinary and transcultural, looking within and beyond national and cultural formations to trace the frequently extra-institutional networks of players involved in producing and/or patronizing art.

Recent work & publications

2023: Guest Curator, 12 Gates Arts (Philadelphia) / Curating an exhibition on Asian artists who explore photography in moments of upheaval

2022: Guest Curator, Delaware Valley Arts Alliance (New York) / Organizing an exhibition on narratives in Asian-American arts

SELECT PUBLICATIONS “India’s First Triennale of Contemporary World Art,” Socialist Exhibition Culture, 1950-1990 (in process) https://socialistexhibitions.com/about-the-project/

“Playing with Photographs,” Trans Asia Photography (Spring 2022)

“Art as Communication: Small Diplomacy and the Formation of the Grey Collection,” Art Journal, 80.2, June 22 2021; pp. 73-83.

“Mulk Raj Anand and the Politics of the Non-Aligned Movement,” Post: Notes on Modern and Contemporary Art around The Globe, Museum of Modern Art, NYC (2019)

“Social Media and Memory,” Visual Arts Journal (India Habitat Centre, 2022)

“An Architecture of Memory.” Third Text: Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Art and Culture (peer-reviewed, 2017) www.thirdtext.org/architecture-memory

Links

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