Terence Trouillot There is wide-ranging geographical representation through the artists presented in Spotlight, spanning South Asia, South America, Europe, North and West Africa and East Asia. What conceptual throughlines connect these artists? Did these shape the section’s development, or did they mostly emerge through the research and selection process?
Devika Singh My work has long been grounded in South Asia, while also following lines of exchange with Asia – including West Asia – Europe and North Africa. For Spotlight, I worked closely with galleries presenting H.A. Karunaratne’s vibrant early work, Piraji Sagara’s adventurous wood sculptures and Ganesh Haloi’s moving compositions, along with the quasi-sculptural work of Mahjoub Ben Bella and Mohamed Melehi’s controlled use of colour, to give a few examples.
More broadly, two interrelated axes run through Spotlight: post colonial emancipation and artistic circulation. The practices of several artists intersect with anti-colonial struggles and political upheaval. Maliheh Afnan is one example. Her family left Iran because of their Bahá’í faith and settled in Palestine. Born in Haifa, Afnan fled to Lebanon in 1949, later living in France for over 20 years before moving to London. Her art bears the traces of her complex trajectory, its opacity resisting any claim to authenticity.
We can also trace these circulations through the notion of ‘entangled modernisms’, by focusing on nodes of intersection. Eurocentric narratives long invisibilized artists, excluding them from dominant definitions of art in France and Britain. This is being revised, with exhibitions such as ‘Paris Noir’ last year at the Centre Pompidou showcasing Haitian artists Luce Turnier and Roland Dorcély, both part of Spotlight. For South Asia, Anwar Jalal Shemza offers another example: a racialized artist first exhibited in the UK in the late 1950s and ’60s, but deserving of far greater recognition.
