Geeta Kapur is no stranger to Indian art history, having shaped its contours over several decades. Over the years, her essays have been read, debated, quoted, lauded—and sometimes criticized for being too academic, or too Left-centric. In a country convulsing in the opposite direction, the last can be expected, though a smidgeon of western art theory can deflect from the seriousness she brings into her considerable knowledge and authority on the subject.
Speech Acts revisits some of the familiar Geeta Kapur, one in which you see her ‘maintain, break and regain historical time’, thereby ridding it of linearity. There are also her lectures delivered in 2013 and 2017 respectively at Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven of which what’s included is ‘a shredded outcome’. But it is in the interviews that you get the raw, unadulterated art historian that makes this book worth its money and my while.