Dr. Debashish Banerji, Haridas Chaudhuri Professor of Indian Philosophies and Cultures and Doshi Professor of Asian Art at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), will consider three pioneers of this first phase of modernist Indian Tantric painting, S. R. Raza, G. R. Santosh, and Sohan Qadri. These artists represent a movement begun in the late 1960s in which a new turn towards finding a universal visual language arose in modernist Indian art through an engagement with the geometric abstraction of Tantric yantras and mandalas. Here, art transcends sectarian and ethnic differences while retaining a connection with indigenous roots of spiritual philosophy and practice.
The Doug Adams Gallery is the primary exhibition space for the Center for the Arts & Religion at the Graduate Theological Union.