ONCE AND FUTURE GODDESS

An ongoing exhibition at DAG - Kali: Reverence and Rebellion brings together depictions of the goddess over the centuries

- Aditya Mani Jha

In the companion book to DAG’s ongoing exhibition Kali: Reverence and Rebellion, curator and longtime art columnist Gayatri Sinha writes that her essay “seeks to trace, through a spectrum of readings, Kali, her worship and the vilification that recasts her scriptural depiction, as well as her more settled forms of invocation in ritual performance and worship”. The same can be said for the exhibition, where we see how, across centuries, representations of Kali have been influenced by artistic and commercial concerns, hybrid religious/spiritual beliefs and whims and fancies of rich patrons.