In 1997, Jane Farver, the farsighted and much-loved American curator who died in April, put together an influential exhibition called "Out of India: Contemporary Art of the South Asian Diaspora" at the Queens Museum. It was one of the few surveys of its kind up to that time, and Farver was careful to advertise it as a broad sampler. Now, that exhibition's successor, "After Midnight: Indian Modernism to Contemporary India, 1947/1997", is at the same museum. This time all of the artists are South Asian-born. It is basically two distinct shows, one of Modernist painting of the 1950s and 1960s, the other of multimedia work from the past few years, both defined by the traumatic event in the exhibition title.The earlier, "Modern" section, with just eight artists, is more focused. All were students or young professionals in Bombay at Independence. As the Progressive Artists Group, they saw themselves as an avant-garde and shared a sense of living in a cultural pressure cooker. They could make

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Holland Cotter

Holland Cotter

Holland Cotter

Holland Cotter: After Midnight