The Barbican presents The Imaginary Institution of India: Art 1975- 1998.

This exhibition is organised by the Barbican in collaboration with the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi.
From 5 October 2024, the Barbican presents The Imaginary Institution of India: Art 1975-
1998, the world’s first exhibition to explore and chart this period of significant cultural and
political change in India. Featuring nearly 150 works of art across painting, sculpture,
photography, installation and film, this landmark group show examines the ways in which 30
artists have distilled significant episodes of the late 20th century and reflected intimate
moments of life during this time.

Bookended by two pivotal moments in India’s history – the declaration of the State of
Emergency by Indira Gandhi in 1975 and the Pokhran Nuclear Tests in 1998 – The
Imaginary Institution of India aims to delve into a transformative era marked by social
upheaval, economic instability, and rapid urbanisation.
The exhibition takes the declaration of the Emergency in 1975 and the ensuing suspension
of civil liberties as a moment of national awakening, signalling how it provoked artistic
responses, directly or indirectly. It surveys the artistic production that unfolded over the next
two decades or so, within the turmoil of a changing socio-political landscape. Culminating in
the 1998 nuclear tests, the show illustrates how far the country moved from the ideals of
non-violence, which once had been the bedrock of its campaign for independence from
British colonial rule.
Unfolding loosely chronologically across both floors of the gallery, The Imaginary Institution
of India guides the visitor through this tumultuous time. The artists featured grapple with the
shifting context of late 20th century India; some responding directly to the national events
that they were living through, while others captured everyday moments and shared
experiences. All of them combined social observation with individual expression and
innovation of form to make work about friendship, love, desire, family, religion, violence,
caste, community and protest. This has determined the four axes that shape the exhibition:
the rise of communal violence; gender and sexuality; urbanisation and shifting class
structures; and a growing connection with indigenous and vernacular practices.
Most artists will be represented by multiple works, providing a fuller view of their practices
and highlighting the aesthetic evolution in their oeuvres. In this way, the exhibition also
traces the development of Indian art history from the predominance of figurative painting in
the mid-1970s, to the emergence of video and installation art in the 1990s. Primarily wall-
based art in the upper galleries will give way to installations downstairs, with works
presented alongside an exhibition design inspired by the transforming urban landscape of
India during the period and the shifting boundaries between the public and the private; the
street and the home.
Shanay Jhaveri, Head of Visual Arts at the Barbican, said: “The exhibition takes its title
from an essay by Sudipta Kaviraj, which discusses the processes of instituting democracy
and modernity in a post-colonial society characterised by diversity and plurality. These
negotiations form the core of The Imaginary Institution of India: Art 1975-1998, a show that
underscores, through powerful and evocative artworks, the essence of a truly democratic
society – where people communicate, coexist, and connect on various levels, from the
exuberantly sexual to the defiantly political.”
Kiran Nadar, Founder & Chairperson, KNMA, said: “The Kiran Nadar Museum of Art
(KNMA), in its ongoing partnership with the Barbican presents the second exhibition focused
on bringing visibility and critical attention to the practice of Indian and South Asian artists
through selected seminal works highlighting social, political, and artistic transformations in
India from 1975 to 1998. We are delighted to have loaned a substantial number of major
artworks to the exhibition that energise the theme, taking viewers through a spectrum of
materials, media, and content.”
Works on display include:
• Gulammohammed Sheikh’s painting Speechless City which draws on different art
historical painting traditions to respond to the oppressive political atmosphere of the
1975-77 State of Emergency.
• Gieve Patel’s empathetic paintings which vividly portray daily life in the streets of
India’s rapidly expanding, cosmopolitan cities in the 1980s.
• Sunil Gupta’s photographic series Exiles, from 1987, which makes visible the lives of
gay men in New Delhi in and around some of its most recognisable landmarks.
• Sheba Chhachhi’s Seven Lives and a Dream, a series of photographs which
juxtaposes moving and ferocious documentation of feminist grassroots campaigns in
India with tenderly staged portraits of the women at their forefront.
• Meera Mukherjee’s intimately scaled and intricately detailed bronzes which, inspired by
her time spent studying metal crafting traditions across India, use lost-wax casting
techniques to address subjects both sacred and everyday.
• Savi Sawarkar’s bold etchings which deal with issues surrounding caste and
untouchability.
• Rummana Hussain’s floor-based works which use broken terracotta pots to reckon
with widespread communal violence across the nation following the demolition of the
Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in 1992 by a militant right-wing Hindu mob.
• Installation works made from cow dung, thread, and sacred kumkum pigment by Sheela
Gowda which make use of materials used as fuel, in religious rituals, and part of the
everyday economy of women in rural places to interrogate the value of labour.
• A video installation by Nalini Malani in which moving image, projected on the walls and
playing on monitors in tin trunks, considers the impact of India’s nuclear testing and
links it to concerns around violence and forced displacement.
• Bhupen Khakhar’s exceptional paintings which tenderly evoke queer love and desire.
Participating artists
Pablo Bartholomew, Jyoti Bhatt, Rameshwar Broota, Sheba Chhachhi, Anita Dube, Sheela
Gowda, Sunil Gupta, Safdar Hashmi, M. F. Husain, Rummana Hussain, Jitish Kallat, Bhupen
Khakhar, K. P. Krishnakumar, Nalini Malani, Tyeb Mehta, Meera Mukherjee, Madhvi Parekh,
Navjot Altaf, Gieve Patel, Sudhir Patwardhan, C. K. Rajan, N. N. Rimzon, Savindra
Sawarkar, Himmat Shah, Gulammohammed Sheikh, Nilima Sheikh, Arpita Singh, Jangarh
Singh Shyam, Vivan Sundaram, and J. Swaminathan.
Film
Accompanying the exhibition, the Barbican will present Rewriting the Rules: Pioneering
Indian Cinema after 1970 (3 Oct-12 Dec) curated by Dr Omar Ahmed, writer and
international curator of South Asian Cinema. This season of documentary and narrative films
from the 1970s, 80s and 90s considers the emergence of the new Parallel Cinema – one of
South Asia’s first post-colonial film movements. Like the trajectory traced in the exhibition,
this was a time of shifting aesthetic choices whereby filmmakers rewrote the traditional rules
of what constituted Indian cinema, opting for a creative hybridity and experimentation that
fused together aspects of Indian art and culture with broader international styles.
Book
The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue co-published with Prestel,
featuring original essays by Devika Singh, Diva Gujral, Rahaab Allana, Rattanamol Singh
Johal, Tarun Nagesh, Roobina Karode and texts by Shanay Jhaveri and Qamoos Bukhari.
Designed by Daly & Lyon. Price: £45

Tickets
Tickets on sale from August 2024: https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2024/event/the-imaginary-institution-of-india-art-1975-1998
Pay What You Can
Barbican will be running two Pay What You Can slots per week.
Select the price you can pay and enjoy the exhibition
Details will be available on the website here: https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2024/event/the-imaginary-institution-of-india-art-1975-1998
Opening Hours
Saturday – Wednesday 10am – 6pm (last entry 5pm)
Thursday – Friday 10am – 8pm (last entry 7pm)
Bank holidays: Please check the website as opening times vary.