Bikaner House
Group Show
The Idea of the Acrobat and Terranum Nuncius Group Exhibition
Part 1 - The Idea of the Acrobat: Group Show
Part 2 - Terranum Nuncius by Jitish Kallat
Nature Morte is proud to present two exhibitions: The Idea of the Acrobat and Terranum Nuncius at Bikaner House. With this endeavour, Bikaner House opens the Centre for Contemporary Art to the public, utilizing a former office building and substantially expanding their exhibition spaces.
Gymnastics and juggling, tight-rope walking and trapeze acts, these are the activities associated with acrobats. Similarly, art practices require the abilities of balance, flexibility, strength, timing, and risk-taking. The exhibition, ‘The Idea of the Acrobat,’ will present the work of 12 artists in all media: painting, sculpture, photography, video, and installation. The great diversity of options available to contemporary artists will be on view, from works dealing with the pertinent socio-political issues of today to others exploring the elasticity of materials and definitions of what can be considered as “art” in the 21st Century. The exhibition includes works by Nidhi Agarwal, Atul Dodiya, Shilpa Gupta, Reena Saini Kallat, Bharti Kher, Manish Nai, Khyentse Norbu, Aditya Pande, Rashid Rana, Ayesha Singh, Dayanita Singh, and LN Tallur. This exhibition will take place on both floors and the outside grounds of the new Center for Contemporary Art, adjacent to the Bikaner House building.
Alongside, Jitish Kallat's exhibition entitled Terranum Nuncius premiers in Delhi after having received a spectacular response in Mumbai earlier this month. On show will be two major new works: a photographic-and-sound installation entitled Covering Letter (terranum nuncius) and Ellipsis, the artist’s largest painting to date.
Covering Letter (terranum nuncius) commemorates and re-invokes select sounds and images that were composed for expedition into interstellar space as a planetary message to extra-terrestrial life. Continuing his interest in the epistolary mode, the work uses the “letter” sent out to deep space by the Nasa Space Agency in the place where Kallat has previously employed speeches and letters by world leaders in earlier works.
Ellipsis is Jitish Kallat’s largest painting to date, spanning 60 feet (18 meters) in length and measuring 9 feet (2.75 meters) in height. Over the last two years, Kallat’s painterly practice has intersected more directly with his varying artistic inquiries and intellectual pursuits to produce a radical linguistic renewal. The work sources a wide array of scientific disciplines for graphic and notational systems, synthesized by the artist into a single panoramic field.
Artworks
Installation Views
