Nikhil Chopra and Munir Kabani, Bhairav Exhibition Guide

With its title inspired by and featuring one of the most ancient raags known in Hindustani classical music, the film follows a journey across the landscape of Goa, South West India. The work alludes to historical and cultural shifts on the sub-continent, as well as the timeless cycles between day and night; birth and rebirth; the spiritual and the earth; the journey of mankind.

Bhairav is a poetic tribute to Goa itself, as well as a subtle commentary on some of the issues facing India historically and today such as the marginalisation of certain communities and the position of women, offering a multitude of interpretations when the works are viewed together.

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FREE EXHIBITION GUIDE

Bhairav is a co-commission by New Art Exchange and Chatterjee and Lal. It is presented as part of Here, There and Everywhere, and supported

by Re:Imagine India, Arts Council, England and the British Council.

On the year which coincides with the seventieth anniversary of Independence in India from British colonial rule, this time in history is known to be one of great turmoil.

The partition of India, at this time signalling the birth of Pakistan and later Bangladesh, meant migration and human losses on a massive scale.

This project explores these journeys, taking us to contemporary India and exploring the country’s relationship with the UK today.

New Art Exchange 39-41 Gregory Boulevard Nottingham NG7 6BE

0115 924 8630 info@nae.org.uk www.nae.org.uk

Here, There and Everywhere is a Midlands-London consortium led

by New Art Exchange with Delfina Foundation, QUAD/FORMAT, Primary and mac Birmingham as core UK partners. Indian partners include: Art India, Chatterjee & Lal, HH Art Spaces, Mumbai Art Room, What About Art?, Indian Memory Archive, Quicksand, Unbox, Jaaga.

BHAI RAV MUNIR KABANI & NIKHIL CHOPRA

MAIN GALLERY 16 JULY – 24 SEPTEMBER 2017

New Art Exchange presents Bhairav, an immersive installation bringing together the worlds of film, large scale drawing and live performance.

The exhibition interweaves narratives of spirituality, and pre-colonial and post-colonial society in India.

On the eve of the exhibition opening, the gallery was the site of a durational live performance by artist, Nikhil Chopra.

He transformed the space from blank canvas to an immersive landscape, realised through a series of drawings created over the course of a number of hours. After its completion, and for the rest of this exhibition season, the work was reconfigured to reveal a second chamber housing the film, co-directed

by Munir Kabani and Nikhil Chopra, Bhairav.

We enter the main gallery surrounded by large scale drawings on canvas. This immersive space carries a memory of Nikhil’s Chopra’s performance and is specific to the time, place and history connected to the exhibition as a whole. Once left in the space, these huge drawings evoke a world created by the artist. They blend collective and subjective histories, placing them in a context, now shared with the narratives of the film, Bhairav, which may be seen through a doorway ‘cut’ into the cloth itself.

A second chamber housing the film itself once again gives a sensation of immersion, and whilst allowing a constant reference with the drawings, is autonomously balanced within the exhibition. Kabani and Chopra’s vision here is embodied by the immense and powerful horizontal landscape of Goa, the first ‘protagonist’ of the piece. The work explores in detail the colour and texture of the rock face, akin to that of the nearly naked figure who later enters the frame. The man pounds spear-like nails into a wooden frame, the intense heat beating down on his toiled body. The positioning here suggests connection between man and his environment, for better or worse, timeless in its consistency, also bringing to the fore inequalities relating to skin colour, caste, class and other hierarchies still current in India and the world today.

* The Rudra Veena is a large plucked string instrument used in Indian classical music.

It is one of the most ancient stringed instruments in India.

The work, moving from landscape to Goan Portuguese architecture, subtly references the merging and blending of cultures. Whilst not entirely critical, detailed drawings of the ‘players’ within the piece bring to the fore Indian tradition, inhabiting man-made structures now embedded into the landscape of this part of India. There are references to Christianity with the hammering of nails onto the wooden frame, and the journeys of colonisation with the arrival of boats from Europe historically – once raised, the canvas is reminiscent of a sail. This is coupled with imagery of the central figure dragging the fabric across fields populated by oxen.

From the ‘colonialesque’ dress of the figure walking the roads later on in the piece, to the delicate portrait, committing the musician, in charcoal, to the wall in his home; the different environments that these characters populate represent a myriad of lived experience in this region over time.

The voyeur, who appears towards the end, playing his part within this narrative as he sketches a female figure giving birth on a bed, leaving a subtle message perhaps concerning the position of women in these histories, the male gaze a strong feature of this part of the film. In fact, the cries of a woman in childbirth cut through to the essence of the work, demanding our attention and focus on the primal, and potentially ultimate, spiritual connection that humankind has with the earth.

The work as a whole delves deep into the psyche of Goa and its changing landscape, poetically tackling the complexities of the history and culture of the sub-continent, and finally removing its own gaze as this world diminishes from sight into the clouds above.

** A raag or raga is a musical theme created by choosing a specific set of notes, and a melodic framework for compositions and improvisations. The raga exists in both Southern (Carnatic) and Northern Indian (Hindustani) classical music.

The term raga comes from Sanskrit, meaning “colour” or “passion”, and sets out to create a mood. Ragas are associated with a particular time of day or season.

The Artists

Nikhil Chopra’s artistic practice is centred on live art and performance, and he has a background in fine art.

Based in Mumbai and Goa, India, and performing in locations across the globe, he uses the histories in sitespecific contexts. His work explores notions of identity, auto-biography and the expressions of this through self-portraiture, characterisation and embedded in an integral fine art practice. He creates large scale landscape drawings which have included media such as charcoal, coal and lipstick. His durational performances may last hours, days or weeks. As the narratives unravel, they are punctuated by his own presence or persona in the spaces. Chopra has explored film within his practice, collaborating with artist Munir Kabani, co-director of Bhairav.

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Juxtaposed with the cool night air, the majestic sound of the Rudra Veena* takes us away from the heat of the midday sun and towards a spiritual plane, suggesting perhaps not a greater force of nature, but one of equal measure. This scene alludes to an opulent world: we are far from the sound of hammer on nails. The ambience of raag** Bhairav offers a different connection between man and nature, one that welcomes the dawn, the birth of day.

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The Exhibition

Munir Kabani has a background in cinematography and film theory. Also based between Mumbai and Goa, aside from his film work, his practice includes interactive sculpture and installation, which he has shown globally. Kabani’s work explores the every-day, detailing and ‘pulling focus’ on the cultural influences which inform everyday society and placing these observations in a contemporary global context. At the heart of the work is his study of human nature with a deep emphasis on spirituality and the lenses through which we see the world, something integral to his latest work, Bhairav.

He also has a long-standing working relationship with Nikhil Chopra.