Indian Contemporary Art Contemporary, One Word, Several Worlds

The paintings created by the hundreds of tribes scattered across India present a complex and diverse array of unconventional modern art. Since 1996, author Herve Perdriolle has been involved in raising the profile of the "other Indian masters." Offering unique insight into their creative world, this collection of paintings presents 30 emerging tribal and popular artists in the context of their communities. The selected painters include Jivya Soma Mashe, the legendary artist from the Warli tribe, and Jangarh Singh Shyam.

Hervé Perdriolle is a collector, art critic and exhibition curator. He was the promoter of Figuration Libre and was associated with the first exhibitions of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Ravinder Reddy in France. Since 1996 he has been mainly involved in raising the profile of the 'other Indian Masters' through the works of the leading contemporary artists in the tribal and popular art of India. He was in charge of the Indian contribution to the Lyon Biennale in 2000 and organised a meeting in India between Richard Long and Jivya Soma Mashe, the legendary artist from the Warli tribe. This meeting gave rise to two exhibitions, one at the Kunst Palast Museum in Düsseldorf in 2003, the other at PaC in Milan in 2004. Jean-Hubert Martin is a curator and art historian. He organised the famous exhibition Magicians of the Earth in 1989 and is still one of the major figures in the contemporary art world. He has been the director of Kunsthalle Berne, Musée national d'art moderne - Centre Pompidou, Musée national des arts d'afrique et d'océanie and Museum Kunst Palast Düsseldorf. He has been curator of Lyon (2000) and Moscow (2009) Biennials.