A season outside, 1998, Amar Kanwar © Amar Kanwar
The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum has just opened a new temporary exhibition entitled “Experiments with Truth: Ghandi and the Images of Nonviolence”.
Organized by The Menil Collection, Houston, the exhibition features a selection of around one hundred works of art, documents and photographs tracing Ghandi’s personal, spiritual, ethical and political path. From the origins of his thinking to the extent of his legacy, the exhibition promotes a dialogue between cultures, arts and techniques: tantric paintings, extremely rare Koranic parchments and Jain sculptures feature alongside works by contemporary artists such as Yves Klein, Dan Flavin, Ai Wei Wei and Amar Kanwar.
In partnering The Menil Collection, one of the most important private collections in the USA, founded by Jean and Dominique Menil, the aim of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum is to encourage reflection on the nature of nonviolence and to create space for dialogue between the exhibits, which come from a wide range of historical, cultural and aesthetic contexts.
Through art, the exhibition explores the influence deriving from Ghandi’s satyagraha ethics in the visual arts. Satyagraha, the “force of truth”, a Sanskrit neologism coined by Ghandi himself, is the cornerstone of the civil disobedience that he championed and exemplified throughout his life. The themes unfold as the visitor moves through the exhibition – from religion to prison, by way of India and South Africa, all of them reflecting the philosophy of nonviolence advocated by Ghandi.
Hiroshima, 1961, Yves Klein, ©2014, ProLitteris, Zurich
Works by Rembrandt, Agnes Martin, Yves Klein, René Magritte and Robert Gober provide the artistic and iconographic representations of nonviolence. Robert Gober’s installation "Untitled" is an invitation to see prison not merely as a place of confinement but also as a place of reflection, education and intellectual output and as a tool of civil resistance.
Historical, political and social disturbances in India and South Africa, countries in which Ghandi developed the bases of his nonviolent thinking, are well represented throughout the exhibition, thanks to the works of William Kentridge, Jürgen Schadeberg, Marlène Dumas and Amar Kanwar.
Experiments with truth: Ghandi and the art of non-violence
Temporary exhibition from 15 April 2015 to 3 January 2016
www.redcrossmuseum.ch
Photo credits:
(1) Amar Kanwar
A Season outside, 1998
16mm film transferred to video, color with sound, 30’
© Amar Kanwar
Courtesy of the artist and the Marian Goodman
Gallery New York / Paris
(2) Yves Klein
Hiroshima, 1961
Dry pigment in synthetic resin on paper on canvas
138,7 x279,7 cm
The Menil Collection, Houston
Photo : Rick Gardner, Houston
©2014, ProLitteris, Zurich
