BENGALURU: Bengaluru-based artist, Balan Nambiar will be showcasing his art pieces for a second time at the Reitberg Museum in Zurich from May 16. The installations will also be on display in Bihar. The Rietberg Museum is the only art museum for non-European art in Switzerland, focusing on traditional and contemporary arts and cultures of Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Oceania. It has about 23,000 objects and 37,000 ethnographic photographs in its collection.
Nambiar will display his two sculptures Kannati Bimbam to Bhagavati and Symbolising Shakti at the museum. “A 101cm high Kannadi Bimbam to Bhagavati and 60 cm high Symbolising Shakti are the result of my research on Mirror Idol worship in Kerala. Both these works have been acquired by Museum Rietberg and will be part of the MIRRORS exhibition opening on May 16,” says Nambiar.
Kannadi Bimbams are mostly installed in places of idols of worship in the sanctum sanctorum of goddess Bhagavati in northern Kerala. The consecration rituals are identical for both the Kannadi-Bimbam and the idols, which are considered divine objects thereafter.
This is the first time that an exhibition will take a global look at the cultural history of the mirror, stretching back thousands of years. Based on 200 artworks from 95 museums and collections around the world, photographs and scenes from movies, this exhibition will present a comprehensive history of the mirror reaching back eight thousand years...mirror images and self-awareness, vanity, beauty, mysticism and magic, protection and defence, and today’s most fashionable mirror – the selfie.
The sculpture at Patna will be 21 ft high sculpture. This was commissioned by the Bihar Government to be installed in front of Police Bhavan. “As a sculpture, it is a departure from many of my earlier monumental sculptures, that it simultaneously combine both symmetry and asymmetry, exploring the possibility of the medium of stainless steel. My creative work in stainless steel goethrough many sketches, drawings, computer generated design, laser cutting, TIG welding, grinding and polishing before installation. It took six months to complete the sculpture,” Balan concluded.