Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong organised “mould the wing to match the photograph”, an exhibition of materials from Mrinalini Mukherjee's personal archive, a digitisation project that was launched on AAA's website in 2022. The six-month long exhibition was held at CCG Gallery, Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong from 20 Sep 2023 to 29 Feb 2024. It staged an encounter between Pari (1986), the artist’s monumental hemp fibre sculpture, and archival materials with detailed installation instructions and extensive photographic documentation of Pari and similar works.
The title of this exhibition, “mould the wing to match the photograph,” was borrowed from Mukherjee’s installation instructions, and evoked the kind of back-and-forth that occurs between an artwork and the reproducible digitised archive. The archival materials complicated the sculpture’s sense of organicity and intuitiveness, and demonstrated a desire for precision and control. The exhibition emphasised how the archive actively reconfigures the understanding and experience of Mukherjee’s work.
“mould the wing to match the photograph” was curated by Noopur Desai, Pallavi Arora, and Samira Bose of Asia Art Archive in India and was generously supported by Mimi Brown & Alp Erçil, and Virginia & Wellington Yee. The artwork Pari (1986) was generously loaned by the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art for this exhibition.
Image: Installation view of “mould the wing to match the photograph,” Asia Art Archive, 2023. Photo: South Ho.
March 20, 2024