Lauren O'Neill-Butler interviews poet Franck André Jamme about the history of abstract Tantric painting from Rajasthan, India.

Tantric paintings, O'Neill-Butler writes, "resonate uncannily with lineages of twentieth-century art—from the Bauhaus and Russian Constructivism to Minimalism—as well as with much painting today." Jamme comments that these affinities "could mean that our notion of progress – past, present, and future – is not correct. And it could also mean that abstract art is not necessarily a Western, nineteenth-century art-historical development. It dates back to Native American, Tibetan, and Australian Aboriginal sand painting, for sure."

The second edition of Tantra Song by Franck André Jamme will soon be available from Siglio Press.