Nikhil Chopra: Lands, Waters, and Skies

We are delighted to announce a presentation at Chatterjee & Lal of the residues of Nikhil Chopra’s 2019 performance ‘Land, Waters, and Skies’.

Nikhil Chopra (born 1974) was The Met’s 2019-2020 Artist in Residence and he lived at The Met Fifth Avenue for nine continuous days in September 2019.

Chopra prepared for this performance over the course of more than a year. He immersed himself in the Met’s collection and its physical layout, observing how audiences moved through the galleries. Chopra’s path during the performance inevitably traversed extraordinary spans of time and geography, represented by the objects. The Met had displayed according to its own logic. He cut across fictional frontiers, wandering from one place to another, like a nomadic traveller, carrying his own wares and materials, observing and interacting with works of art that have been transferred from their original contexts.

His reflections on the histories of these objects and the stories of their acquisition by The Met was communicated through actions, songs and the making of a monumental landscape.

Rolling out his bed each night and sleeping under camera surveillance, Chopra connected the beat of his own pulse to the daily rhythm of the Museum. His itinerant path through the galleries would likewise echo the human displacement of past colonialism and present-day migration.

Excerpt by Shanay Jhaveri from the curatorial text.
The performance was curated by Shanay Jhaveri and Limor Tomer from The Met.

Watch The Met’s short film on the artist reflecting on the performance (starting at 4 mins 29 seconds): Click to view link.