I ended the old year with a visit to this extraordinary exhibition which I highly recommend although, sadly, there are only a few days left.
It’s described in the introduction material as follows: Featuring artwork by over 30 Indian artists, this major exhibition is bookended by two transformative events in India’s history: Indira Gandhi’s declaration of a state of emergency in 1975 and the Pokhran nuclear tests in 1998. The fraught period between these years was marked by social upheaval, economic collapse, and rapid urbanisation.
Within this turbulence, ordinary life continued, and artists made work that distilled historically significant episodes as well as intimate moments and shared experiences. Across a range of media, the vivid, urgent works on show – about friendship, love, desire, family, religion, violence, caste, community, protest – are deeply personal documents from a period of tremendous change.
This is the first institutional exhibition to cover these definitive years, with many works never before seen in the UK.
You can buy timed tickets and watch a short video here.
I hope my images give you a sense of the experience of a visit. Of the published reviews I like these best : The one in The Guardian newspaper along with the review by Dr Pavan Mano of King’s College London
Here are some of the images I took:
Gieve Patel (1940-2023) Two Men with Hand Cart, 1979
Nilima Sheikh, Shamiana, 1996
Gulamohammed Sheikh (b. 1937) Speechless City, 1975
Photographs by Pablo Bartholomew (b. 1955)
Sudhir Patwardhan (b. 1949) Dhakka and Running Woman, both 1977
Gieve Patel Off Lamington Road, 1982-86
Sunil Gupta (b. 1953) Exiles, 1987
Arpita Singh Seashore,1984
Bronzes by Meera Mukherjee (1923-1998)
Himmat Shah (b. 1933) Untitled
K.P. Krishnakumar Boatman-2, 1988
In the foreground, N.N.Rimzon From the ghats of Yamuna , 1990 and on the wall M.F.Husain (1915-2011) Safdar Hashmi, 1989
Arpita Singh My Mother, 1993
N.N. Rimzon House of Heavens,1995
N.N.Rimzon The Tools, 1993
You can buy timed tickets and watch a short video here.
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