Professor Sarat Maharaj was born and educated in South Africa during the Apartheid years. He did his PhD in Britain on ‘The Dialectic of Modernism and Mass Culture: Studies in Post War British Art’.
Professor of History & Theory of Art at Goldsmiths, London 1980 -2005, he is currently Professor of Visual Art & Knowledge Systems, Lund University & the Malmo Art Academies, Sweden.
He was the first Rudolf Arnheim Professor, Humboldt University, Berlin (2001-02) and Research Fellow at the Jan Van Eyck Akademie, Maastricht (1999-2001).
Sarat Maharaj’s specialist research and publications cover Marcel Duchamp, James Joyce and Richard Hamilton. His writing covers: Visual Art as Knowledge Production & Non-Knowledge; Textiles, Cultural Translation and Difference; the ‘convergence’ of image, sound, movement and consciousness studies (Knowledge Labs 2005 & 2006, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin with Liu Sola (New York/Beijing) and Kofi Koko (Paris. Benin) and New Media Art (Banff, Canada 2007)
He will lead the Visual Arts Knowledge Lab on cultural Translation, Toronto, May 2009
With Okwui Enwezor, Sarat was co-curator of Documenta X1 (Kassel. 2002).
With Richard Hamilton and Ecke Bonk, he curated ‘Retinal. Optical. Visual.
Conceptual on Marcel Duchamp’ (Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam. 2002).
Sarat Maharaj was co-curator of ‘Farewell to Postcolonialism’ … Towards a Post-Western Modernity’, Guangzhou Triennial, 2008.
Printed Projects (Dublin): ‘Querying the Guangzhou Triennial 2008’ edited by Sarat Maharaj will be part of the Republic of Ireland/Northern Ireland presence at the Venice Biennale, 2009
Sarat Maharaj is a member of Iniva’s Board of Trustees.