Sarat Maharaj

Sarat Maharaj (born 1951 in Durban, South Africa) is a writer, researcher, curator, and professor.

Maharaj's family was part of the large group of Indians who migrated to the province of KwaZulu-Natal in the nineteenth century. The grandfather of Maharaj worked in sugar plantations as a contract worker.

As a child, Maharaj witnessed the effects of racial segregation under the Apartheid regime. During his university studies, Maharaj had to travel by ferry to the University College for Indians, located on Salisbury Island off the coast of Durban. These experiences made him sensitive to the violence that was inherently present in classification systems.

Maharaj eventually left South Africa for Britain. In 1980, he began his doctorate at Goldsmiths. His thesis was The Dialectic of Modernism and Mass Culture: Studies in Post War British Art. He is an authority on the work of Richard Hamilton, Marcel Duchamp, and James Joyce. He is a Professor of Visual Arts and Knowledge Systems at the Malmö Art Academy at Lund University in Sweden and was Professor of Art and Art Theory at Goldsmiths College, London from 1980 to 2005.

Maharaj has held visiting professorships and fellowships at several institutions including Jan Van Eyck Academie, Maastricht and Humboldt University, Berlin. His writings, curatorial projects, and presentations have appeared all over the world. Maharaj is also a member of the advisory board of the journal Third Text.

Curatorial projects include:

co-curator, There is always a cup of tea to sail in: 29th São Paulo Biennale (2010) Farewell to Postcolonialism, Towards a Post-Western Modernity, Guangzhou Triennial, Guwangzhou, (2008) Knowledge Lab, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, (2005) co-curator, documenta 11, Kassel, (2002) co-curator (with Richard Hamilton and Ecke Bonk), retinal.optical. visual.conceptual . . ., Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, 2002

Maharaj lives and works in London and Lund.