What's in a Medium? Photo-Performance as Feminist Practice

What does it mean for an artist to perform the role of the goddess? This talk examines the work of contemporary Indian artist Pushpamala N. (b. 1956) by considering the meanings of the medium she most often chooses for her work: the creation of photographs that center the artist’s own performance of icons ranging from goddesses to actresses to criminals. Karin Zitzewitz will trace the emergence of Pushpamala’s photo-performance practice to its origins in the mid-1990s before engaging some of her most recent work, including her performance photographs of Bharat Mata, or Mother India.

Karin Zitzewitz is a specialist in the modern and contemporary art of South Asia. She is the author of Infrastructure and Form: The Global Networks of Indian Contemporary Art, 1991–2008 (2022), The Art of Secularism: The Cultural Politics of Modernist Art in Contemporary India (2014), and The Perfect Frame: Presenting Indian Art: Stories and Photographs from the Kekoo Gandhy Collection (2003). She curated exhibitions by Pakistani artist Naiza Khan (2013) and Indian artist Mithu Sen (2014) for the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University. Her research has been supported by the European Research Council, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Paul Mellon Centre for British Art, the American Institute for Indian Studies, and the Fulbright program. She is a former Chair of the editorial board of Art Journal and Art Journal OPEN. Zitzewitz is Professor and Chair of the Department of Art History and Archaeology at the University of Maryland, College Park.