DWELLING
10th Anniversary Exhibition, curated by Ranjit Hoskote
The exhibition comprises two parts.
The artists in Part I are Aji V.N., Anita Dube, Atul Dodiya, C. K. Rajan, Gieve Patel, N. S. Harsha, Nicola Durvasula, Siji Krishnan, Sosa Joseph, Sudarshan Shetty, Tanya Goel and Varunika Saraf.
The artists in Part II are Abir Karmakar, Abul Hisham, Arun K.S., Buddhadev Mukherjee, Dayanita Singh, Jyothi Basu, Kiki Smith, Manish Nai, Ratheesh T., Surabhi Saraf, Vidha Saumya, and Vinod Balak
What does it mean to build, dwell, form habitations and communities; to find accommodation in a spiritual rather than a pragmatic manner; to develop a sense of locale or neighbourhood in an age of precariousness, turbulence and violence? For Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke’s 10th anniversary exhibition, I take as inspiration the philosopher Martin Heidegger’s seminal essay, ‘Building Dwelling Thinking’.
Ranjit Hoskote
At the core of the 10th anniversary exhibition of Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke are the practices and works of a set of artists who the gallery represents; or who have been its long-term friends; or who have collaborated in its major projects periodically. Taken together, these artists incarnate the life of the gallery, the web of relationships and conversations that sustain its activity.
On this occasion, it seems fitting that we should return to a foundational text of 20th-century philosophy: Martin Heidegger’s ‘Building Dwelling Thinking’ (1951). A brilliant yet controversial figure, Heidegger (1889-1976) meditates, in ‘Building Dwelling Thinking’, on the conscious act of dwelling, of accommodating the self’s needs and desires to the environment through the medium of architecture.
Heidegger was preoccupied at this period with the housing crisis in post-war Germany and the pervasive issue of homelessness after the fall of the Third Reich and the destruction of infrastructure during World War II. The essay is concerned with the question of how to belong. One of its solutions is that of the locale – the sense of belonging crafted from the bringing together of the known and the unexpected, in the “founding and joining of spaces” that is the act of building. Heidegger emphasises that it is by dwelling “in things”, through nursing and nurturing, cultivating and constructing, that we most fully express life.
Many of the participating artists have, over the years, concerned themselves with the kind of questions that are related to Heidegger’s inquiry, such as those of ‘building’, ‘neighbourhood’, ‘community’, ‘locale’, and ‘accommodation’. Heidegger’s ideas will not be imposed as a template on the diverse approaches of our artists; rather, they will form a link between propositions that arise organically from their work and our historical moment.
For further information, please contact the gallery.