Kiran Nadar Museum of Art’s latest exhibition evaluates the viability of the ideal of equilibrium in a world shaped by the pandemic, civil wars, and unending ecological crisis

A figure dressed in white navigating the water rowing a  boat of ice until it melts, a famous mathematician withdrawing from the pressing needs of everyday life, and defunct machines and everyday home appliances laid out on a long table denying functionality and service.

The Kiran Nadar Museum of Art presents an online adaptation of their on-site exhibition  ‘Delirium // Equilibrium – Videos, Films and Kinetic Objects’ from the KNMA Collection curated by Roobina Karode (Director & Chief Curator, KNMA) in 2018. The initial exhibition physically displayed the exhibits in the black boxes of the museum.

“In the present virtual rendition, the displays are once again emphasised on, through documented still and moving images, by illuminating the need for a rewiring of the world around and introspecting the crisis-ridden conditions of contemporary life. Accentuating the importance of introspection over intervention, reflection over recreation, the sixteen artists in the exhibition also intend to probe perpetual desires of human beings and their shared will to survive,” reads the curatorial note.

Retaining hope despite the apparent disposableness of the human race in the age of global catastrophes, many of these exhibits indicate tendencies to retreat into oneself, almost as a compulsive civic duty in a world ravaged by the pandemic. The exhibits also focus on the outward kinesis within living beings in search of general betterment. 

Evaluating and introspecting the viability of the ideal of equilibrium in a world shaped by the pandemic, civil wars, and unending ecological crisis; the exhibition investigates the present through a series of conceptual and visual montage. The participating artists, through their videos, films, and kinetic objects that were displayed in the black boxes of the museum, presented blurred visions of broaching life, illuminating the need for a rewiring of the world. 

Today, when the meaninglessness and dispensability of the human race are utterly exposed and the retreat into oneself has become the new civic duty, KNMA is revisiting the exhibition – accentuating the importance of introspection over intervention, reflection over recreation. Here, the desire for equilibrium gives way for an elegy for the desire itself.

A virtual rendition of a one time physical exhibition demands new means of viewing. It is introduced by juxtaposing documented still and moving images, along with a reimagined dialogue between the exhibits. It also raises fundamental questions such as, ‘Is not the very idea of art itself a vision of survival and resistance, a hope for a better tomorrow?

The exhibition can be viewed on the website of Kiran Nadar Museum of Art