 "The Museum of Chance cabinet at Museum Bhavan picture by Simon White; Museum Bhavan")
Museum Bhavan is a four-room exhibition by artiste Dayanita Singh, which uses photographs, all 800 of them, as the raw material to create a series of nine cabinets. Each cabinet is called a museum. These bring together photographs spanning decades of Singh’s works, and their consciously obscure concepts allow the observer to give each museum their own personal narrative.
The exhibition progresses beyond a typical photography exhibition where still images are hung on walls. Instead, the cabinets themselves are the objects of value. The nine structures are constructed from horizontal and vertical lines of photographs, set in wooden slots that can be extended or folded as the artiste wants. Each structure houses 140 photos inside it. Only 40 can be displayed at any given time. These cabinets can be extended or shut to create new works of art, making them simultaneously a book, an art object and an exhibition. There’s typically very little text on each cabinet, which gives the spectator a hint of what the artiste visualised. Singh has deliberately built a form that fits her requirements to wax and wane, reveal and conceal based on her moods.
While the concept germinated from Singh’s 2008 book, Sent a Letter, and the museums have been previously displayed, including at their permanent home inside the artiste’s residence in Vasant Vihar, the current exhibition is being shown for the first time in India, with three entirely new mini museums.
I walk into the exhibition through a typical steel door and come to the first room that is designated as the museum shop. Here, Singh sits and curates the shop and the museums. Her role here as well as the role of the shop would keep changing as the exhibition continues. One day she would use it as a simple bookshop; another day, it would be the site for an award ceremony. And on another day, she may use it for a book launch. As she says, “It is my museum and I can do things my own way”.
Beyond this is a blank wall that brings me to the photo-sculptures called Museums of Little Ladies and File Museum. The Museum of Little Ladies has pictures of the same subjects taken by the artiste’s mother as well as by Singh. There are even recent pictures of Singh and those taken when she was a baby. The File Museum is a sister sculpture of the former, since the photos and the sculptures are the same size and the photos can be exchanged. Beyond it is the Museum of Men, which is veiled with a muslin cloth that will be pulled off by an unknown curator the artiste will decide upon at a later date. I then step past the Museum of Photography to the veiled Kochi Pillar. Beyond that are the Museums of Factories, Furniture, Vitrines and then, I come to the room devoted to the Museum of Chance. This huge cabinet contains images taken from 1981 till recently. The room also contains tables and stools that dot the room and allow people to sit and work. These stack up inside each other and can be neatly packed away and fitted back inside the cabinets, making the structure of the room mobile too.
The point that the exhibition tries to make is that each of these images can be seen in a million ways and placed in a million situations. So, an image can be placed in any of the sister museums, or even a new one, based on what the whole sculpture says to the artiste and the viewer. As Singh says, “Fact is the burden. Take away what you know from an image and see what’s left.”
This gives the artiste the space to change them whenever she likes. As she puts it, “I’m ‘evolutive’ and therefore my art has to grow and change.” As I write this, it is fair to say that the next viewer can expect to see a different exhibition when he or she steps into this museum of museums.
Museum Bhavan will be on display at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in New Delhi till June 30, 2016, 10.30 am to 6.30 pm
The exhibition progresses beyond a typical photography exhibition where still images are hung on walls. Instead, the cabinets themselves are the objects of value. The nine structures are constructed from horizontal and vertical lines of photographs, set in wooden slots that can be extended or folded as the artiste wants. Each structure houses 140 photos inside it. Only 40 can be displayed at any given time. These cabinets can be extended or shut to create new works of art, making them simultaneously a book, an art object and an exhibition. There’s typically very little text on each cabinet, which gives the spectator a hint of what the artiste visualised. Singh has deliberately built a form that fits her requirements to wax and wane, reveal and conceal based on her moods.
While the concept germinated from Singh’s 2008 book, Sent a Letter, and the museums have been previously displayed, including at their permanent home inside the artiste’s residence in Vasant Vihar, the current exhibition is being shown for the first time in India, with three entirely new mini museums.
I walk into the exhibition through a typical steel door and come to the first room that is designated as the museum shop. Here, Singh sits and curates the shop and the museums. Her role here as well as the role of the shop would keep changing as the exhibition continues. One day she would use it as a simple bookshop; another day, it would be the site for an award ceremony. And on another day, she may use it for a book launch. As she says, “It is my museum and I can do things my own way”.
Beyond this is a blank wall that brings me to the photo-sculptures called Museums of Little Ladies and File Museum. The Museum of Little Ladies has pictures of the same subjects taken by the artiste’s mother as well as by Singh. There are even recent pictures of Singh and those taken when she was a baby. The File Museum is a sister sculpture of the former, since the photos and the sculptures are the same size and the photos can be exchanged. Beyond it is the Museum of Men, which is veiled with a muslin cloth that will be pulled off by an unknown curator the artiste will decide upon at a later date. I then step past the Museum of Photography to the veiled Kochi Pillar. Beyond that are the Museums of Factories, Furniture, Vitrines and then, I come to the room devoted to the Museum of Chance. This huge cabinet contains images taken from 1981 till recently. The room also contains tables and stools that dot the room and allow people to sit and work. These stack up inside each other and can be neatly packed away and fitted back inside the cabinets, making the structure of the room mobile too.
The point that the exhibition tries to make is that each of these images can be seen in a million ways and placed in a million situations. So, an image can be placed in any of the sister museums, or even a new one, based on what the whole sculpture says to the artiste and the viewer. As Singh says, “Fact is the burden. Take away what you know from an image and see what’s left.”
This gives the artiste the space to change them whenever she likes. As she puts it, “I’m ‘evolutive’ and therefore my art has to grow and change.” As I write this, it is fair to say that the next viewer can expect to see a different exhibition when he or she steps into this museum of museums.
Museum Bhavan will be on display at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in New Delhi till June 30, 2016, 10.30 am to 6.30 pm
