Bharti Kher’s new solo exhibition

London based Hauser & Wirth gallery is hosting Bharti Kher’s solo exhibition, entitled ‘inevitable undeniable necessary’.

A series ‘confess’ is showcased in the main gallery will is akin to a room whose interior surfaces are animated by oculi-like feminine bindis, providing a boisterous counterpoint to the hushed rituals of the confessional. The single light bulb hanging from the ceiling brings with it images of forced confessions in prison cells. Upstairs, a motorised rocking horse is transformed into a unicorn, its horn marking the arc of time.

On the other hand, ‘Contents’ is a series of medical charts. They are veiled by a diaphanous skin of bindis, the artist plays with the paradoxical nature of the sperm-shaped bindi, at once masculine and feminine, mainstream and esoteric, enduring and ephemeral.

The artist’s way of working is exploratory: surveying, looking, collecting, and transforming. By bringing to attention the overlooked world with its everyday acts, such as applying the bindi in Indian culture, confessing as a ritual or looking at oneself in a mirror, and then re-assessing their meaning, Kher’s work repositions the viewer’s relationship with the object. A curatorial note elaboates:

“An arcane symbol of fertility, the contemporary stick-on bindi is a popular cosmetic device available in different shapes and colours and is an integral part of Kher’s œuvre. Exploiting their cultural and aesthetic dualisms, Kher uses bindis as an epidermal filter to transform objects. As shimmering signs in the form of waves, constellations, and spirals, Kher’s bindis mediate between codes and symbols and the ritual marking of time.”

In her art, she gives form to the slightly awkward and strange encounters with the daily rituals of life. The artist’s vision makes the banal wondrous and the quotidian unusual, even disturbing, at times. Her usage of found objects, such as mirrors or furniture, is invariably informed by her own position as an artist located between geographic and social milieus.

Entitled ‘inevitable undeniable necessary’, the sculpture that forms core of her new show, suggests the impermanence of seemingly immutable objects and the potential of interior rhizomatic space to challenge hierarchic thought.