Naman Ahuja

Naman P. Ahuja
Naman Ahuja in 2014
Born	1974
Nationality	Indian
Alma mater	School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Occupation	Indian Art Historian
Known for	Ancient history, curating The Body in Indian Art and Thought exhibition
Website	www.indianiconography.info

Naman P. Ahuja (born 1976) is an Art Historian and Curator based in New Delhi. Presently, He is Professor of Ancient Indian Art and Architecture in Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi where his research and graduate teaching focus on Indian iconography and sculpture, temple architecture and Sultanate period painting and co-editor of Marg. He has curated several exhibitions most notably The Body in Indian Art and Thought and published books, notable The Making of the Modern Indian Artist Craftsman: Devi Prasad. He is an academic who creates a work of art as he teaches it.

Early life

Professor Ahuja received his Ph.D. in Art History from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, for a pathbreaking thesis on early Indian terracottas. His research was based on extensive surveys and site visits in district and local museums, and made arguments for the relevance of non-canonical and popular artistic production and use in understanding the social and cultural history of early India. A specific contribution was his work on votive figurines and other imagery from the post-Mauryan period, which brought to light a pantheon of Indian gods and goddesses that were irrevocably transformed after AD 200.

Career

As Professor

Professor Ahuja has been tutor of the post-graduate Asian Arts Course at the British Museum, London. When the course transferred to the School of Oriental and African Studies, he continued as a Visiting Professor. He has held Visiting Professorships and Fellowships at the University of Zurich, University of Oxford, the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence, the University of Alberta in Edmonton and Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi. He was lecturer of the MA program on the Religious Fine and Decorative Arts of India at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies, London University) from 1998 to 2000. He has been a Fellow at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, where he authored a comprehensive catalogue of their collection of early Indian antiquities. Currently he teaches at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Curator

He has been a curator at the British Museum apart from curating several exhibitions in India and abroad on themes ranging from ancient to contemporary art. From 2001 to 2002 he was Curator of Indian sculpture in the Department of Oriental Antiquities at the British Museum, London and the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. His most recent exhibition was The Body in Indian Art and Thought which was held at Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels and National Museum, New Delhi

Views

On March 18, 2012 at the convention “Collecting Ancient Art in the 21st Century", Naman said that in many countries modern development proved as serious a threat to archaeologist sites as looting. It was imperative for collectors to engage with the views of archaeologists and challenging collector groups to find ways to help source countries stop looting,

Publications

• The Making of the Modern Indian Artist Craftsman: Devi Prasad. Delhi: Routledge, 2011.
• Changing Gods, Enduring Rituals: Observations on Early Indian Religion as seen through Terracotta Imagery c. 200 BC - 200 AD in "South Asian Archaeology", Paris, 2001.
• Divine Presence, The Arts of India and the Himalayas. Milan: Five Continents Editions, 2003 in English, Catalan and Spanish.
• InFlux ed. with Parul Dave Mukherji and Kavita Singh. New Delhi: Sage, 2012.
• The Body in Indian Art and Thought. Belgium: Ludion, 2013 in English, French and Dutch.

• Rupa-Pratirupa: The Body in Indian Art. New Delhi: National Museum, 2014.