Modernism in Relation

KCSPaniker (1911-1977) is a canonical figure in India's twentieth-centurymodernism. He was principal of the Madras School of Art and founder of one ofthe world's longest-standing artists' communities. Yet, even within India, heremains a marginal figure, positioned at the periphery of a dominant artworld centered in the north. Paniker's best-known body of work, theWords and Symbols series (1963-77), calls on us toreconsider how knowledge is produced and disseminated in a postcolonial,decolonizing world. These "written pictures"-paintings filled with symbols,tables, equations, and illegible scribbles-invite decoding, only to underminethe pursuit of wholeness or stable meaning.Panikerfamously called Paul Klee his "guru." In this book, art historian Rebecca M.Brown explores what that might mean, moving beyond tracing influence andderivation to embrace a fuller sense of artistic relation across geographyand time. Featuring over 100 stunning illustrations,Modernism in Relationexplores the dynamic, twisting currents of modernism, tracing how Panikernavigated its waters on his own terms-abandoning prescriptions for whatmodern art should be or what Indian modernism should look like. The bookreveals a maker seeking new creative languages, challenging ways of knowing,and exploring the unpredictable, ever-changing nature of relation.