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2021 – India. A Story Through 100 Objects
Vidya Dehejia
We are constantly surrounded by objects, by ‘things’ that channel and dictate our everyday life, ‘things’ that we take for granted. But these objects speak to us, and speak about us. They have a story to tell that reflects our values and aspirations, our achievements and dreams, and reveal more about us than we realize. This richly illustrated book focuses on 100 objects to tell a story of India that unravels in a series of thematic sections that allow the objects to take center stage. The stories that some objects tell will be new to readers; at other times, the objects themselves may be familiar but the story they tell may not be obvious. The 100 objects shed light on the varying priorities and the differing strands of achievement that arose over time to create the rich multi-cultural medley that is today’s India.
Vidya Dehejia is the Barbara Stoler Miller Professor of Indian and South Asian Art at Columbia University in New York, and the recipient of a Padma Bhushan conferred on her by the President of India in 2012 for achievement in Art and Education.
Over the past forty years she has combined research with teaching and exhibition-related activities around the world. Her work has ranged from Buddhist art of the centuries BCE to the esoteric temples of North India, and from the sacred bronzes of South India to art under the British Raj. This comprehensive scope is evident from her books: The Thief who Stole my Heart: The Material Life of Sacred Bronzes from Chola India, 855–1280 to Discourse in Early Buddhist Art: Visual Narratives of India; from The Unfinished: Stone Carvers at Work on the Indian Subcontinent to The Body Adorned: Dissolving Boundaries between Sacred and Profane in India’s Art; and from Delight in Design: Indian Silver for the Raj to Devi, The Great Goddess: Female Divinity in South Asian Art.
Management and curatorial experience at the Smithsonian’s Freer and Sackler Galleries in Washington DC, combined with her interest and pleasure in teaching first-year undergraduates, provided her with a broad mandate to convey the excitement of her field to non-specialist audiences. India. A Story through 100 Objects is a result of this priority.
‘A fabulously well-written and sumptuously illustrated introduction to Indian art and civilization. From mesolithic hand-axes and Indus Valley seals to Mrinalini Mukherjee’s knotted hemp and Subodh Gupta’s stainless steel tiffin cans, via Shiva linga, Chola bronzes, Sultanate gravestones and illuminated Qurans, Vidya Dehejia has the enviable gift of clarifying the most complex conundrums, as she illuminates and celebrates the many wonders of five thousand years of Indian creativity.’
William Dalrymple
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2016 – A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts
65th A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts,
The National Gallery of Art, Washington DC. Lectures:Spring 2016
To watch videos click on the lecture title.
The Thief Who Stole My Heart: The Material Life of Chola Bronzes from South India, c. 855–1280
Sixty-Fifth A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts
Vidya Dehejia, Columbia University
In this six-part lecture series entitled The Thief Who Stole My Heart: The Material Life of Chola Bronzes from South India, c. 855–1280, art historian Vidya Dehejia discusses the work of artists of Chola India who created exceptional bronzes of the god Shiva, invoked as “Thief Who Stole My Heart.” Graceful, luminous sculptures of high copper content portrayed the deities as sensuous figures of sacred import. Every bronze is a portable image, carried through temple and town to participate in celebrations that combined the sacred with the joyous atmosphere of carnival. In these lectures, Dehejia discusses the images as tangible objects that interact in a concrete way with human activities and socioeconomic practices. She asks questions of this body of material that have never been asked before, concerning the source of wealth that enabled the creation of bronzes, the origin of copper not available locally, the role of women patrons, the strategic position of the Chola empire at the center of a flourishing ocean trade route between Aden and China, and the manner in which the Cholas covered the walls of their temples with thousands of inscriptions, converting them into public records offices. These sensuous portrayals of the divine gain their full meaning with critical study of information captured through a variety of lenses.
Part 1: Gods on Parade: Sacred Forms of Copper
Part 2: Shiva as “Victor of Three Forts”: Battling for Empire, 855–955
Part 3: Portrait of a Queen: Patronage of Dancing Shiva, c. 941–1002
Part 4: An Eleventh-Century Master Sculptor: Ten Thousand Pearls Adorn a Bronze
Part 5: Chola Obsession with Sri Lanka and the Silk Route of the Sea in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries
Part 6: Worship in Uncertain Times: The Secret Burial of Bronzes in 1310
Watch or listen on nga.gov | Watch on ArtBabble | Watch on YouTube
www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/research/casva/meetings/mellon-lectures-in-the-fine-arts.html (A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts)
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2015 -The Unfinished
Book: The Unfinished: Stone Carvers at Work on the Indian Subcontinent, Delhi: Roli Books, 2015
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Ad natoque erat. Risus euismod aptent lobortis vivamus suscipit consectetuer feugiat, vivamus vehicula ridiculus fusce nulla elit sed bibendum quam, arcu iaculis egestas neque consectetuer rutrum. Quam quis pellentesque mattis. Duis tempor. Vehicula dui sit suspendisse Id orci, hac fusce fringilla curae;. Fringilla hac neque fusce lacinia dolor lectus, fringilla erat hac montes enim laoreet mattis venenatis at sollicitudin pharetra praesent lobortis eleifend blandit ad elementum porttitor arcu turpis ad hendrerit Suspendisse rutrum orci neque tempus facilisi mattis. Habitasse curabitur et egestas vulputate nulla mus nec consequat. Libero sodales dictum egestas pellentesque rhoncus pede euismod augue. Neque Aptent sagittis sociis cursus. Sit purus. Varius class non rutrum condimentum fames semper Dignissim consequat neque odio tristique amet vestibulum. Ac dapibus ullamcorper porta nunc netus class. Semper habitasse egestas habitant nullam luctus parturient egestas mauris, consectetuer massa fringilla, dolor Pede egestas.
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