Along the Indian Highway

Cathrine Bublatzky is a visual and media anthropologist and Assistant Professor at the Department of Visual and Media Anthropology, Heidelberg Centre for Transcultural Studies, Germany. As a trained photographer she received her Magister in Anthropology with a focus on South Asian History and Visual Anthropology in 2008. In her research and teaching, she investigates contemporary visual practices in the field of art and photography, with a main interest in migration and diasporic studies, citizenship, and urban contexts in South Asia, the Middle East, and Europe.

‘In the past two decades, Europe has seen more than a dozen exhibitions of Indian contemporary art, but none as dazzling and complex as Indian Highway, which was originated by celebrated curator Hans Ulrich Obrist and traveled between 2008 and 2012. Cathrine Bublatzky casts an ethnographic eye on each of the five stops along the route: London, Oslo, Herning, Rome, and Beijing. As she moves along, she argues persuasively and quite originally that such events must be read as sites of transcultural encounter. This goes against the grain of both contemporary art discourse and the anthropology of art. Rarely has either discipline engaged with such a case, in which a show can be transformed so completely by its cultural context. Bublatzky’s richly detailed analysis sheds new light on a key analytic of studies of globalization: mobility.’Karin Zitzewitz, Interim Chair, Department of Art, Art History, and Design and Associate Professor of Art History and Visual Culture, Michigan State University, Kresge Art Center, USA‘This book is a fresh and pioneering ethnographic work about the dynamics of art exhibitions in a transcultural context. Not only is the case study of Indian Highway’s journey through Europe and to China fascinating and unique, Bublatzky’s clear and creative approach to read the material makes this book a must-read for students and scholars interested in contemporary cultural production.’Christiane Brosius, Professor of Visual and Media Anthropology, Heidelberg Center for Transcultural Studies, Germany ‘Cathrine Bublatzky has made an important contribution to exhibition history and the emerging understanding of the global milieu of contemporary art production and viewing with this book. It situates its reader squarely where the action is.’ Raqs Media Collective, Delhi, India

• List of Figures. List of Plates. Acknowledgments. Preface by Monica Juneja 1. Along the Indian Highway: An Introduction 2. "Cancel That Flight to Delhi…": Serpentine Gallery, London 2008 3. "Indianness and the Urgency of Transmission...": Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo 2009 4. "There Might be an Indian Background, But the Theme is Global": HEART Museum of Contemporary Art, Herning 2010 5. Transcultural Dissonances in the Contemporary Art World: Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI Secolo, Rome 2012 6. Indian Highway VI Finally on Its Way to China: Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art, Beijing 2012 7. Shared Exoticisms or the Limits of the National Exhibition: Some Final Observations