New Museum

Nikhil Chopra

28 Oct 2009 - 14 Feb 2010

Yog Raj Chitrakar: Memory Drawing VI, Kunstenfestivaldearts 09, Brussels. Photo credit: Shivani Gupta
NIKHIL CHOPRA
"Yog Raj Chitrakar: Memory Drawing IX"

10/28/09 - 2/14/10
Glass Gallery

Nikhil Chopra combines strategies associated with theater, portraiture, landscape drawing, photography, art actions, and installation to chronicle the world through live performance. As the Victorian draughtsman Yog Raj Chitrakar, Chopra haunts bustling market squares, forgotten old buildings, city streets, and museum galleries to make large-scale drawings. Within the performance, daily actions—washing, eating, drinking, sleeping, dressing, shaving, and observing—are transformed into ritualistic spectacle. While an ambiguous past collides with a unstable present, Yog Raj Chitrakar reveals the process of documenting what he sees while exploring self-portraiture, autobiography, history, fantasy, and sexuality.

For his exhibition at the New Museum, “Yog Raj Chitrakar: Memory Drawing IX,” Chopra activates the lobby gallery, now a turn-of the-century tableau vivant, for five days (November 4–8, 2009) as Yog Raj Chitrakar. Visitors are encouraged to return often to witness the evolution of Yog Raj Chitrakar’s character as he explores, documents, and responds to the changing face of New York City. Docmentation from three previous performances will also be on view. This exhibition is presented in conjuntion with PERFORMA 09. Chopra will also lead a Propositions seminar November 13–14.

Nikhil Chopra’s work has been included in “Indian Highway” at the Serpentine Gallery (2008–09), “Making Worlds” at the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009), and “Marina Abramovic Presents,” the Manchester International Festival (2009). He lives and works in Mumbai, India.

“Yog Raj Chitrakar: Memory Drawing IX” is curated by Eungie Joo, Keith Haring Director and Curator of Education and Public Programs.

Costume Design: Loise Braganza

“Yog Raj Chitrakar: Memory Drawing IX” is curated by Eungie Joo, Keith Haring Director and Curator of Education and Public Programs.

“Yog Raj Chitrakar: Memory Drawing IX” is made possible by the Toby Devan Lewis Emerging Artists Exhibitions Fund.
 

Tags: Marina Abramović, Nikhil Chopra, Keith Haring