Overview

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.

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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.

~ Shanay Jhaveri

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.

Nikhil Chopra: Objects of Interest

The Temple of Dendur in the Sackler Wing
I am awestruck by one of the public’s perennial favorites, The Temple of Dendur in the Sackler Wing. The audacious human ambition of “saving” this extraordinary monument from drowning under the waters of the Aswan Dam, dismantling and reconstructing it, piece by piece, in this enormous wing, inside the Museum, is baffling. For me this act epitomizes what has long been perceived as the role of the Western museum or rather how it positions itself as a steward of cultural heritage.

Body Mask (Gallery 354)
I am deeply moved by this mid 20th-century body mask from the Asmat Tribe in Papua New Guinea. The mask stares back at me through the glass case, and I can almost hear its own voice and see it move. Its gaping eyes and mouth are as horrific as the beheading of the enemy tribesman. In my research into the Asmat and their way of living, I was saddened to see the end of the last of the non-industrialized frontier of human culture.

A Brazilian Landscape (Gallery 965)
Adjacent to the Lehman Courtyard in an exhibition of Dutch masterpieces from The Met’s European paintings collection hangs a 1650 painting titled A Brazilian Landscape by Frans Post. The scene is described as exotic, tropical and nostalgic as it marks a moment in Dutch history when power changed hands and Brazil became a Portuguese colony. This landscape feels oddly familiar, reminding me of my current home Goa, in both its appearance and its colonial history.

Credits

Costume Design:
Loise Braganza

Set Design:
Michael Vanreusel

Production Design:
Ayesha Punvani

Sound Design:
Jatin Vidyarthi aka Masta Justy

Photographic Documentation:
Shivani Gupta

Research:
Madhavi Gore

Song Writer:
Gautam Sharma

Music for Songs:
Raoul Amaar Abbas a.k.a. Yaqeen

Perfurmer:
Jahnvi Nandan

Project Managers:
Neena Percy and Shaira Sequeira

Trunk Customization:
Bobby Aggarwal, Portside Café

A Video Walkthrough by Mort Chatterjee