“mould the wing to match the photograph” draws on the archive of Mrinalini Mukherjee, one of the most prominent sculptors in India, known for her experimentation with form and materiality over her forty-year practice. It stages an encounter between Pari (1986), the artist’s monumental hemp fibre sculpture, and archival materials with detailed installation instructions and extensive photographic documentation of Pari and similar works. The archival materials complicate the sculpture’s sense of organicity and intuitiveness, and demonstrate a desire for precision and control. The exhibition emphasises how the archive actively reconfigures the understanding and experience of Mukherjee’s work.
Note from the Curators:
“mould the wing to match the photograph” stems from our immersion in Mrinalini Mukherjee’s personal archive as part of the digitising process at AAA in India’s office. The exhibition materialises simmering internal lunchtime debates about how Mukherjee’s digitised archive would and could alter and disrupt our perceptions of the artist’s practice.
Mukherjee’s extensive photo-documentation of her own work allowed us a certain closeness to her sculptures without direct physical proximity. As we scanned contact sheets, one after another, we noticed subtle shifts in angles through the repetitive and seemingly compulsive way in which she reassessed her sculptures through photography. The singular was multiplied to the point of being overwhelming, the forms constantly whirring in our minds. An animation experiment enabled us to express the seriality of the still images, where the artist appears as a spectre for just a moment, adjusting a fold.
Venue address: CCG Library, Asia Art Archive