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| Edited By: Ornella D'Souza |Source: DNA |Updated: Dec 05, 2017, 01:42 PM IST
Five thousand years of India's history will come alive in 220 iconic objects from 28 museums. The upcoming exhibition India and the World: A History in Nine Stories at Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS) is unprecedented, one not witnessed in recent decades, say experts. The scale of the exhibition — for which CSMVS has collaborated with the British Museum and the National Museum, Delhi, and is supported by the Tata Trusts and the Getty Foundation — has titillated the art community so much that 50 directors from leading museums across the world are set to visit in mid-November.
The man who conceived it has been working on it for the last three years. Much has changed in the 27 years that Director General Sabyasachi Mukherjee has been with the museum, which he joined as an intern in 1990; many of these changes have come under his stewardship since 2007. In 2008, the Indo-Sarcenic edifice received a much-needed face-lift. Mukherjee championed the Museum on Wheels — a bus that introduces themes in art history to school students across Maharashtra. The touring bus will be a teaser to the Children's Museum that is scheduled to open in April 2018. Besides, the museum has regularly hosted large-scale exhibitions Mummy: The Inside Story (2012) and The Cyrus Cylinder and Ancient Persia (2013), in which the clay cylinder in Akkadian cuneiform script, the world's first charter of human rights, occupied pride of place. Days before what is likely to be a landmark exhibition in the Mumbai museum's history, the 52-year-old spoke to Ornella D'Souza. Edited excerpts:
In March 2014, after showcasing the 5th century BC Cyrus Cylinder inscribed in Akkadian cuneiform script from the British Museum, I told (former British Museum director) Neil (MacGregor) about my desire to showcase India's art, history and culture in 100 Indian objects in the context of world events. This was inspired by his BBC series, A History of the World in 100 Objects. While Indians are not exposed to world cultures because art history is not taught in school, the world sees Indian arts as crafts because we did not inscribe them with names or dates. I think our art is world class. Also, all its forms are connected to India's history.
Neil had then exclaimed that it won't be "humanly possible to showcase your history, which is over a million years old, in 8,000sqft space". So we spent three years figuring what iconic moments from India we wanted to identify, formed eight time frames or stories and roped in co-curators, Professor Naman Ahuja and Dr JD Hill, to select the objects. In the exhibition, India becomes the portal through which the visitors will travel to the rest of the world.
The Ashokan Edict No. IX (250 BC) found at Nallasopara, made by a king who professed peace and non-violence when the Romans and Persians were busy expanding their empires. There's the Bahubali (9th-century AD) from Karnataka, a beautiful agate Humped Bull (1800 BC) with gold horns from Haryana State Archaeology and Museum, a bronze replica of Mohenjodaro's Dancing Girl (2500 BC) and Gupta period gold coins with the king on the obverse and Asvamedha, or deities, on the reverse. The ninth story Quest for Freedom is abstract. It shows through modern and contemporary works how Indian and world cultures perceive time and space. In focus is LN Tallur's Unicode (2011), an abstract Nataraja, from the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, in which a coin-embedded rock replaces the Shiva as the universe.
Huge sculptures will welcome visitors at our rotunda lobby. At the centre, we've placed one of the British Museum's masterpieces, the Greek copy of the Roman Discobolus (2nd AD), around which stand a Nandi (800-900AD) loaned from a private collection, a stone Yaksha (150-50BC) and from the National Museum and a bronze Hanuman (20th century) from the India Crafts Museum, among other sculptures. The nine stories are in nine galleries. In each gallery, about 6-7 Indian objects are centrally placed. Encircling these are about 25 objects from world cultures, belonging to the same period, for comparable viewing. To showcase the first archaeological evidence of man as a hunter, in the first story Shared Beginnings, we've placed the oldest hand-axe in the world (1.7-1.07 million years) from Attirampakkam and loaned by Sharma Centre for Heritage Education in Chennai, in the centre, juxtaposed by hand-axes of the same period from Egypt and Africa.
There are labels and brochures in English, Hindi and Marathi, and a 240-page catalogue by a leading publishing house, to inform the viewer. We've specially recruited 26 talking heads (docents) to provide eager viewers additional details about the objects.
Doing an exhibition with one partner, say the British Museum or Tate or Guggenheim, is easy. But getting together 28 institutions and private collectors isn't!
I'm a little worried about this. If you spend two minutes on each of the 220 objects, then it'll take 440 minutes — that's nearly 8 hours! If you just glance about, it should take 3-4 hours. And one visit won't be adequate for some. We're expecting a large turnout and are well-equipped to deal with large crowds.
Maharashtra governor C Vidyasagar Rao will inaugurate the exhibition. UK's Minister of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Karen Bradley, and of course, Neil MacGregor will be here. For the first time in India, about 50 directors from America and Europe's top museums, including Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Metropolitan Museum of Art (MeT) and the Louvre, will visit an Indian museum's exhibition together.
Changing mindsets. Having worked here for 27 years, 11 as the director, I am familiar with every inch of this institute. I knew that to transform, we needed the money. Despite being one of the largest museums in the country, the government doesn't give us a penny for day-to-day affairs. In 2008, after much perseverance on our part, the Central government sanctioned a one-time grant of `23 crore for modernisation. Other benefactors come to us after seeing the successful restoration work. How else would we be able to hold an exhibition of this magnitude without support? The labour problems that I inherited with the chair no longer exist. Even the sweeper can access my office to discuss problems and issues. Before I retire, I want to make it a world-class museum. My entire curatorial staff is trained at the British Museum, a privilege not many museums in India enjoy.
Sounds like a Bollywood story? It's the story of most people in Mumbai. I didn't know anyone in the city when I came here in 1990 to intern at the museum. After a few days I found a place in Dombivali. For 15 years, I'd commute for five hours by train to work and back. You have to struggle to realise your dreams.
That's my nature. You won't find me outdoors much. I belong to a teachers' family from Bolapur (Shantiniketan) and so much of my current role is academic. I try to remain simple and pick up good traits from others. I don't even let anyone carry my luggage. I enjoy leading an ordinary life. In fact, I buy sabzi almost everyday at Colaba market.
