Abstract

Since the early twentieth century, materiality has been an inherent dimension of art with the use of unconventional materials and objects both in India and the West. For instance, Picasso created the first piece of art to incorporate found everyday materials in his collages of synthetic Cubism. With this radical shift in modern art, artists have explored mundane materials for complex expressions responding to evolving social situations. During the 1910s, Duchamp also pioneered the anti-academic aesthetics by subverting the meaning of found mass-produced objects to re-contextualize them as his famous “readymades.” Indian modern art also witnessed a spectrum of trends and experimentation in terms of materials; artist Ram Kinkar Baij pioneered the use of found local natural materials, developing a context-sensitive modernism. This discussion of found everyday objects and materials leads to a parallel discourse of trash in art. However, there seems to be a gap in the mantel of art history, which assumes a philosophical orientation, ignoring the material studies. The following article dwells upon waste/trash in art, an intrinsically material/physical element, and thus it takes an integrated approach; visual and material culture assuming constitutive function. A consolidated and chronological account of the material evolution and the use of waste lacks theorization in the Indian context. Thus, the study intends to do so by examining the works of artists from three critical transitional phases of twentieth century Indian art. A narrative research methodology is employed involving empirical data collection through interviews. Further, the study proposes that the earliest twentieth century material experimentation in Indian art laid the groundwork for the use of trash. Finally, a comparative account of Indian and Western artists emphasizes that Indian art has an independent trajectory, rooted in its social, political, cultural, and geographical temporalities.