Bharti Kher's Dialectical Identity at Hauser & Wirth London

Bharti Kher's exhibition at Hauser & Wirth in London (March 20 – May 15, 2010) stages a confrontation between Western and Indian aesthetics. The artist uses the bindi, a sacred cosmetic element of the 'third eye' worn by Hindu women, as a leitmotif signaling a return to India. In counterpoint, Western symbols appear: mirrors reminiscent of Titian and Rubens, and a unicorn transformed into a toy in the sculpture The Great Chase. In the main gallery, a confessional interior covered in pink and blue paintings questions sacred paths. In the basement, a singing bowl, essential to Tantric rituals, is titled In the Presence of Nothing, linking Tibetan meditation to Christian incarnation in the absence of both God and the monk who would strike the bowl. A machine replaces the human figure, making technique the agent of mystery. The metaphysical character of Kher's art extends to the gardens of St. James's Church, where a statue titled Choleric, phlegmatic, melancholy, sanguine presents the goddess Kali associated with Hippocratic humors, distorted by correlation with Greek traditions. Hinduism, Christianity, and pagan antiquity are thus connected and compared. The aristocratic house housing the gallery becomes a site questioning the codes of its own conception. Kher confirms her quest for a dialectical identity, neither wholly Indian nor Western.