World of the Gods: Tradition and Modernity in Contemporary Southeast Asia

This exhibition represents a sampling of two genres in the imagery of the gods and goddesses of contemporary Hindu and Buddhist South Asia—regional conventions dating back two thousand  years; and modernist deconstructions  of tradition with creative, sometimes playful reconfigurations. These two genres coexist in today’s South Asia, influencing each other in unexpected ways and making for the richness of a continuing transpersonal visual engagement.

Curator Debashish Banerji has a PhD in art history from UCLA, and teaches courses in Asian art history at Pasadena City College. He is the author of the book The Alternate Nation of Abanindranath Tagore

(Sage International). Banerji has curated a number of exhibitions in the U.S. and India, including Divine Carriers:  Recent Art from India and Nepal, at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles; and Contours of Modernity:  Contemporary Art of India, at the Soka University; Aliso Viejo, California.