Four years ago, Alain Seban, president of the Paris Center for Contemporary Art launched a dialog between French and Indian contemporary artists in order to produce an original event.
The result of this collaboration is the Paris-Delhi-Bombay exhibition. Over fifty works of art, three quarters of which were specifically created for this project, tell a story of discovery. Regrettably, only the French artists were invited to travel to India and recount their vision of it, turning the intended dialog into a several-part monologue about modern India.
Even though it is lacking an Indian perspective onto Western reality, the exhibition is worth seeing. From video (Shilpa Gupta, Camille Henrot), to photography (Tejal Shah, Pierre & Gilles…) and unconventional mediums (Bharti Kher’s unexpected work on body and vanity), the exhibit lays a sharp eye on Indian modernity.
And French artist Kader Attia’s tryptic Collages, which unfolds between Paris, Alger, and Mumbai, deserves a mention as the only work to create the expected dialog – in a beautiful, moving way.
Practical information:
From 25 May to 19 September 2011
Address : Place Georges Pompidou
75004 Paris
Contact : https://www.centrepompidou.fr; + 33 (0) 1 44 78 12 33