Khushmi Mehta is a PhD candidate in Art History at the CUNY Graduate Center, specializing in Modern and Contemporary South Asian art.
Her forthcoming dissertation, “Entangled Narratives: Formations of Collectivity and Community at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda (1960s to 1980s)” examines the development of interdisciplinary artistic and pedagogical practices at the first postcolonial art school in India.
She has held research and curatorial positions at institutions including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Christie’s, New York and the Museum of Art and Photography, Bangalore. She received a BA with Distinction in Visual and Critical Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2018.
Before Nightfall, a 1981–82 triptych by Nilima Sheikh, imagines a scene unfolding at twilight on the campus of the Faculty of Fine Arts in Baroda, a city in the Indian state of Gujarat (fig. 1).1The name of the city was officially changed to Vadodara in 1974. Since the university was founded prior to then and…
