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Posted 19 April 2010

 

Bharti Kher inevitable undeniable necessary

 

Contemporary Indian art has in the last couple of years been very present in England. The Serpentine Gallery organised a group show Indian Highway last winter, the collector Frank Cohen twice showed emerging artists from the subcontinent in his gallery Initial Access through his exhibitions Passage to India I & II, the Saatchi Gallery currently presents paintings and sculptures of young Indian artists in The Empire Strikes Back: Indian Art Today. Many museums and non-commercial galleries in London also presented various historical facets of Indian Art in the recent past. Maharaja: The Splendour of India's Royal Court at the Victoria & Albert Museum exhibited Indian Art from the 18th century until the decolonisation in 1947, Where Three Dreams Cross at the Whitechapel Gallery exhibited photographs from India, Bangladesh and Pakistan from the 19th century to now on.
 
I would like to focus on the work of one contemporary Indian artist, Bharti Kher, who I particularly like and who currently has a solo show: inevitable undeniable necessary

at Hauser & Wirth, one of the most interesting and influential commercial galleries in London, housed in a former bank on Piccadilly.  
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The two exhibitions at Hauser & Wirth and at the Saatchi Gallery are worth visiting in London, not only because they are challenging our views about Indian art and in particular its contemporary art scene, but also as interesting examples of the strong British interest for its former colony’s contemporary artistic practice. 


About the exhibitions

Bharti Kher inevitable undeniable necessary

20 March – 15 May 2010

Address: Hauser & Wirth London, 196A Piccadilly, London W1J 9DY

Gallery hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 10 am – 6 pm

 

The Empire Strikes Back: Indian Art Today

29th January - 7th May 2010

Address: Duke of York's HQ, King's Road, London SW3 4SQ

Opening hours: 10am-6pm, 7 days a week, last entry 5:30pm

 

Bharti Kher

confess, 2009–2010
Wood, bindis, light bulb
243 x 243 x 243 cm / 95 5/8 x 95 5/8 x 95 5/8 in
Photo: Andy Keate

At Hauser & Wirth, Kher shows on the ground floor a little wooden room, originally a Christian confessional. She covers the inside of the room with her trademark colourful bindis. The bindi is a dot that Indian women paint on their forehead once married. Kher uses bindis in all the works and thus changes the meaning of the traditional small circle in various ways. Here the Indian artist beautifully intertwines occidental (the Western architecture) and oriental cultures (the stick-on Indian dots). The work is not autobiographical but one cannot help thinking that the two cultures shaped her thinking process. Born in England, she spent her childhood in Surrey and then moved in the 1990s to New Delhi where she currently lives and works. Finally, a single bulb enlightens the little room reminding us of a prison cell. The prison cell is not to be understood literally but rather metaphorically, probably rather like a claustrophobic feminine psychological space.
In the same room are medical charts showing various pregnancy stages. The charts are covered with bindis, that the artists called “sperm bindis” because of their shape. They are indeed in the shape of a snake but do represent fertility. The drawings show difficult pregnancies and once more, the very female anguishes are subtly suggested.
Upstairs are beautiful mirrors covered in various patterns and colours of bindis. The mirrors are partly broken and the bindis have been arranged according to the cracks. The artist transforms daily objects into beautiful artworks and the female intimacy here appears more peaceful than before.
At the Saatchi Gallery is also exhibited another work by the same artist: An Absence of Assignable Cause. The title refers apparently to the lack of information about the death of one of the biggest mammals in the world, the sperm whale. The artist did not find convincing documentation about the animal’s anatomy and created a massive heart partly from her imagination. The veins of the cardiac muscle are represented with – as always - bindis in a convincing way.  Though the artist chooses the organ representing life, the work does not seem to refer explicitly to the issue of extinction of the animal but rather plays to the artist’s scientific and aesthetic interest in ethnographic matters, which was also visible in other works like The Skin Speaks a Language Not Its Own representing a lying elephant.

Bharti Kher

contents, 2010
Bindis on medical charts, 21 parts
99.54 x 64.5 cm / 39 1/4 x 25 3/8 in each

Bharti Kher

indra's net mirror 8, 2010
Bindis on mirror, wooden frame
192 x 109 x 6.4 cm / 75 5/8 x 42 7/8 x 2 1/2 in
Photo: Mike Bruce

Bharti Kher

An Absence Of Assignable Cause

2007
Bindis on fibreglass

168 x 308 x 150 cm

Courtesy Saatchi Gallery