How often do we think about the leg of a table? Now, imagine a table with that leg missing. By hanging one such solitary leg from the ceiling at his new exhibition in Delhi, Murari Jha makes the innocuous central, making the often overlooked visible.
Past the leg at the entrance of the Nature Morte space in the Dhan Mill complex, there is a deliberate pile of similar dismembered furniture limbs on the floor. Then there is a finger – magnified, cast in bronze — behind which is a large amorphous black structure, the kneading marks on it still seeming fresh.
At first glance, the abstraction of the objects renders the exhibition an air of randomness, until the blistering heat of an April afternoon casts them in a meaningful mould. Jha dissociates the objects from their original context of existence, challenging the nonchalance with which we take the ‘normal’ for granted. Six years ago, this very month, the pandemic-induced lockdown forced hundreds of migrants to leave the Capital, introducing a new ‘normal’. The Noida workers protest is a more recent echo of a similar reality. As the works foreground the invisible labour, the solitary leg, the finger, and its distinct impressions on the sculptures around it become symbolic of all the parts, the sum of which make a whole. A cog in the wheel may seem irrelevant but without the cogs, there is no wheel.
A sculpture from ‘The Future of Nostalgia’ by Murari Jha (Courtesy of the artist and Nature Morte, India)
The black amorphous sculpture has its origins in one of Jha’s childhood memories. “There was a pond near my childhood home where buffaloes would often bathe. If you look carefully, you can see both the animal and the structure of home in it,” says the artist who grew up in Bihar. In this light, the exhibition title ‘The Future of Nostalgia’, borrowed from Russian-American cultural theorist and media artist Svetlana Boym’s book of the same name, assumes a visual meaning – where the artist’s personal becomes the viewers’ collective. Indulging in what Boym calls ‘reflective nostalgia’, Jha doesn’t view the past with romanticised sepia-tinted glasses. Instead, with one foot in the present, and eyes on the future, he wants us to look back with a critical eye and unravel the complexities of memory and time.
This ability of his sculptures to evoke multiple meanings from a nugget of an intimate memory lies in his 15-year-long practice as a performance artist. Trained in painting from Patna University and a masters from Dr BR Ambedkar University, Agra, Jha took to performance art in search of a more meaningful medium of expression. “The way I envisioned my practice wasn’t aligning with the art world, or perhaps my vision lacked clarity at the time. Performance offered something, which today I decode as healing. I came with my own baggage, and it relaxed me, particularly when I was able to connect directly with the audience. My body became my primary subject,” says Jha, whose last solo show, ‘Baggage from the Longest March’ (2023), addressed the pandemic-induced migrant exodus more directly. “From performance, I learnt to look at time and understand space.”
Those familiar with Jha’s practice will know that even in all their movement, his performances embody a sculptural stability. The exhibition is an extension of that – minimal action, abundant implication. His formless sculptures inhabit a sense of movement that makes viewers witness to the act of creation, making them part of the process. “Art for me is not a response to or executing an idea, rather a process of understanding the idea. It’s a tool to educate myself and I want to make the viewer a co-creator in terms of giving it meaning. I want every person to bring a narrative,” he says.
A sculpture from ‘The Future of Nostalgia’ by Murari Jha (Courtesy of the artist and Nature Morte, India)
In another sculpture, pairs of hands wrap themselves around a gramophone horn, as if to block the noise. The hand-stacking game he played in school is the inspiration. “In my village, there was a great sense of community but there wasn’t much noise about being collective. It was internal. But here, in the city, although there is a lot of noise, there isn’t any collective spirit,” says the artist whose practice is rooted in the “exploration of micro socialism.”
It is evident that the process – learning, creating, performing – is the product for Jha. Here, the materiality of his sculptures becomes significant. While he uses bronze and stone, the starting point for every single piece is M-seal, the ubiquitous adhesive in Indian homes used to fix leakages. Jha chose it because it was inexpensive but today, it is the star of his sculptures. “With M-Seal, sculptural exploration is usually limited to maquettes, but for me, when it started responding bodily, I said, ‘This is my performance.’” “It has a temperament for setting. The shine you see isn’t from artificial chemicals or buffing but the constant kneading,” says the 37-year-old artist, making the act of labour central, yet again.
This may be Jha’s second solo exhibition – he has participated in group shows and showcased several performances – and the inconspicuous curation sometimes runs the risk of being perceived as arbitrary but that is also the show’s strength. As his viewers’ meanings permeate his own, the sculptures become evidence of a shared reality. In an increasingly fragmented world, that may well be the future of nostalgia.
The exhibition concludes on May 17.
A sculpture from 'The Future of Nostalgia' by Murari Jha (Courtesy of the artist and Nature Morte, India) 
A sculpture from ‘The Future of Nostalgia’ by Murari Jha (Courtesy of the artist and Nature Morte, India)
A sculpture from ‘The Future of Nostalgia’ by Murari Jha (Courtesy of the artist and Nature Morte, India)
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