The Transcendental Sublime in Contemporary Art

Essay from the year 2013 in the subject Art - Miscellaneous, grade: A, , course: BA (Hons) Fine Arts, language: English, abstract: In Robert Rosenblum's book 'Modern Painting and the Northern Romantic Tradition: Friedrich to Rothko', Rosenblum traces a continuing tradition in art from the 18th century to the 1960s, which centres upon the term 'sublime'. In the past many artists (amongst them Caspar David Friedrich, Turner, Wassily Kandinsky, Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman) and theorists (amongst them Edmund Burke, Immanuel Kant, Jean-Francois Lyotard) have explored the transcendental nature of the sublime in art. Today we live in an age that prides itself on the loss of illusion. Ideas of transcendence in art are often seen as sentimental and viewed with skepticism. The word sublime seems to be stripped down to 'the shock of the new' (often centered on horror). This essay explores how the transcendental sublime is situated in contemporary art. The 'transcendental sublime' will here refer to how looking at a work of art can enable one to be transported, going beyond the given limits to a place of accessing one's spiritual side. Art that has used shock and terror to achieve a sense of the sublime will be excluded from this discussion.

Nandita Mukand is a Singapore-based artist whose practice deals with the relationship with Nature and spirituality from within the contemporary urban context. Materiality becomes a tool for investigating the natural world and questioning the impact urban life has on our experience of time and the meaning we give to our own existence. In 2008, Nandita quit her corporate career of eight years with MNCs like Proctor and Gamble to devote herself fulltime to art making. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (First Class Honours) from the LASALLE College of the Arts in partnership with Goldsmiths, College of London in 2014. Upon graduation she was awarded the most outstanding student in her class. In the same year she was invited by the Bilpin International Ground for Creative Initiatives (BigCi), Australia to develop her research and practice through their residency program. In 2015 she held her debut solo exhibition curated by the celebrated artist Kumari Nahappan. Recently she was invited by the Hawkesbury Regional Gallery, Australia to be their first international artist-in-residence and to develop site specific work for their exhibition "Exploring BigCi". Nandita is an alumna of the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta and has a degree in Electronics Engineering from Lucknow University.