John H. Bowles | Published in 2009 | The Gond tribal peoples of central India first came to broad international notice as inhabitants of the remote wilderness described in Rudyard Kipling’s famous 19th century Jungle Book novels. Yet, in India, the tribe’s Pardhan Gond clan was already known for its great storytellers - with their own tales to tell - who served their people for centuries as itinerant professional bards, priests, genealogists, and oral historians. In recent years, numerous Pardhan Gonds have moved to the city of Bhopal, where they have developed a hybrid art style combining traditional subject matter with modern media - ranging from ink and acrylics on paper or canvas to silk screen prints and animated films. This catalogue of the first American exhibition of these arts traces their evolution from the 1981 chance discovery of a single artistic genius - the twenty-one-year-old Pardhan Gond villager named Jangarh Singh Shyam - into an internationally recognized contemporary tribal art movement that continues to flourish under his successors. How this movement developed reveals both the prejudices and challenges of modernity faced by contemporary tribals, and their resilience and capacity for masterful innovation - adapting themselves and their traditional culture to new circumstances and livelihoods within a globalizing India and the postmodern international art world.
