Manish Nai
22 Jun - 31 Jul 2012
MANISH NAI
COMPACT
22 June - 31 July 2012
COMPACT is the first solo exhibition of work by the Indian artist Manish Nai (b. 1980) at Galerie Gebr. Lehmann, Berlin.
COMPACT, an exhibition of pieces produced over the last two years by the Mumbai-based artist Manish Nai, offers a look into an oeuvre characterized by a simple, unadorned materiality. Jute, otherwise known as burlap, could be seen as a foundation, a starting point of sorts for the artistic creations of Nai, who came into contact with the material through his father’s burlap trade. Nai transmits this material, itself a traditional natural product that stands in stark contrast to new synthetic fabrics, into an artistic context.
Utilizing a minimal-abstract formal language, ordinary materials that we encounter daily—burlap and other textiles, newsprint, aluminum—are pressed into blocks, sometimes soaked in binder to lend them solid shape. Materials that invoke a reduced formal language are employed, positioning the artist as a counterpoint to traditional and contemporary Indian visual language, which relies greatly on the narrative and the figurative.
Operating non-figuratively, Nai’s work allows the gaze to focus on the material itself in its play on structures and surfaces. It takes the material for its own “stories,” told through the recycling of worn-out newspapers or fabrics. Precisely this aspect—recycling—is deeply embedded in Indian society, where almost everything gets used, reused and then reused again owing to the fact that the wastage of resources is something most people cannot afford.
COMPACT
22 June - 31 July 2012
COMPACT is the first solo exhibition of work by the Indian artist Manish Nai (b. 1980) at Galerie Gebr. Lehmann, Berlin.
COMPACT, an exhibition of pieces produced over the last two years by the Mumbai-based artist Manish Nai, offers a look into an oeuvre characterized by a simple, unadorned materiality. Jute, otherwise known as burlap, could be seen as a foundation, a starting point of sorts for the artistic creations of Nai, who came into contact with the material through his father’s burlap trade. Nai transmits this material, itself a traditional natural product that stands in stark contrast to new synthetic fabrics, into an artistic context.
Utilizing a minimal-abstract formal language, ordinary materials that we encounter daily—burlap and other textiles, newsprint, aluminum—are pressed into blocks, sometimes soaked in binder to lend them solid shape. Materials that invoke a reduced formal language are employed, positioning the artist as a counterpoint to traditional and contemporary Indian visual language, which relies greatly on the narrative and the figurative.
Operating non-figuratively, Nai’s work allows the gaze to focus on the material itself in its play on structures and surfaces. It takes the material for its own “stories,” told through the recycling of worn-out newspapers or fabrics. Precisely this aspect—recycling—is deeply embedded in Indian society, where almost everything gets used, reused and then reused again owing to the fact that the wastage of resources is something most people cannot afford.