Body works

More than 300 artefacts, covering four millennia, present the idea of “Body of Indian Art” at the National Museum

Life, at National Museum’s circular first floor, begins with death. Two ferocious 13th century stone sculptures are posited at the entrance — the male jabbing a dagger to his side with insides spilling out and the woman aiming for her own neck. With a raw aftertaste of mortality, one moves forward to find a skeletal Bhairav, Shiva’s fearful reincarnation, in stone, walking on the cremation ground with the man’s lifeless body draped around his shoulders. One of the celebrated ideas in Indian art — the body — is realised through an exhibition “Body in Indian Art”, across 18,000 sq ft at the National Museum.

This temporary fixture in the museum of over 300 artefacts borrowed from around 44 museums, institutes and artists across the country, some dating back to as far as circa 2,500 BC, while others as recent as 2010, includes contemporary artists such as Subhodh Gupta, Sheela Gowda, Pushpamala N and Dayanita Singh. But “Body in Indian Art” is more than just an exhibition of chronology and artefacts. “Exhibition and museums of Indian art are unfortunately curated in the way that we categorise chronologically. What about a gallery of an idea? Why are we looking at art from different periods separately? Let’s put them together and compare,” says art historian Naman Ahuja, who has curated this mammoth exhibition. The “body” has thus become an idea that Ahuja picks up across four millennia. “It took about 20 years of research to compile this in two years,” says Ahuja. Last year, the show made its debut at Belgium’s Palais des Beaux Arts as a part of Europalia festival.

It’s wise to pick up a map at the entrance to follow Ahuja’s elaborate discourse on the body. Stretching to eight galleries and comprising materials both original and facsimile, death is the prelude to this museum. It moves on to “Aroop, Nirankar, Nirgun”, or the body beyond the limits. “It’s about the people who resisted the idea of the body. If you’re not making the body, what are you substituting it with?” asks Ahuja. The gallery throws up several abstract representations as an answer — a panel of physical foot prints of formless gods, from Buddha and Rama to Lakshmi.

From nothingness comes “(Re)birth: Light, Sound, Desire, Creation”. A startling hiranyagarbha (the golden womb), the symbolic source of creation, welcomes one to this segment with Subodh Gupta’s untitled 2010 egg form made from his trademark pans and pots. “Even in the Vedas, there isn’t one single answer to this question: was the Creator female or male?” says Ahuja. Interestingly, this question resonates throughout the project. In a gallery of “Mothers — Graceful Creators and Dangerous Protectors”, for instance, an Ekmukh Lingam stands in the centre.

Perhaps an idea that riddles mankind even now comes with “The Body Ideal: Supernatural”; what is the perfect body? “In world art, when we’re told about the perfect body, we’re told to look at Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. In India, what would you look at for the perfect proportion? We have actually made every type divine,” says Ahuja, pointing to an array of bodies — Kuber (whose name literally means ‘one whose body is bad’), flying celestial creatures, the morphed bodies of Narsimha or Ganesha, and Vamana the dwarf, ending with the “perfect combination” note of Ardhanareshwari. The next two segments evoke the usage of the body to depict heroism and asceticism.

As we near the exit, the body, as we see it, departs from the mortal self and reaches out to meet the divine. Poems of Mahadevi Akka, written to her god precedes “Rapture” — the surreal end to the exhibition. “Can we apply the same rules to art as we do to life?” asks the curator’s note. A 1780 print shows Radha and Krishna, dressed in each other’s garments. “Love can make a person lose themselves completely to the other, such that one’s body is no longer one’s own but the other’s,” it says. Apsaras and other ethereal celestial beings appear at the exit and one wonders what indeed is the body.

“Body in Indian Art” is on till June 7. Entry with museum ticket. For more information, contact 23792775

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National Museum