Manish Nai India, b. 1980
Untitled, 2019
Compressed law book and cover
10 x 8 x 4 in
25.4 x 20.3 x 10.2 cm
25.4 x 20.3 x 10.2 cm
7194
This book sculpture by Manish Nai doubles as an object of contemplation and a relic of Nai’s ongoing meditation on time. Nai employs natural elements like water, gravity and pressure...
This book sculpture by Manish Nai doubles as an object of contemplation and a relic of Nai’s ongoing meditation on time. Nai employs natural elements like water, gravity and pressure to compress the layers of paper until they settle into distinct strata like sedimentary rock. Resting upon their covers, Nai’s book sculptures offer some access to their history as narrative objects, but their compressed form refuses access to the text. The former content is arrested in time, frozen inside the sculpture. As their conceptual identity as a source of storytelling shifts, they evolve into a purely material substance—a source of abstract rather than narrative meaning. Nai has been collecting books from secondhand stores for many years. He is attracted to them on an aesthetic level, admiring the shades of yellow, tan and brown that develop as the paper gradually ages. After experimenting with various ways of compressing the books, he arrived at the technique of soaking the novels in water for a month and then pressing them together. This process transforms the books into something that looks and feels more like cut marble than paper. Materially, Nai is compressing a material; conceptually, he is compressing words and time. These sculptures inquire, “What is a book that cannot be read, or a sculpture that can’t fully be seen?” Nai’s vision for socially-conscious minimalism has earned him global attention as a crucial voice for Indian art today. Paying mind towards the complex intersections of material culture, art history, class relations, and autobiography, his geometrically simple forms distill the essence of contemporary Mumbai. Using materials that are both modest and quintessentially Indian, like jute, teak, newspaper, vintage clothing, or in this case secondhand books, Nai’s pieces are studies in tedious complexities that, once completed, are presented as a tightly organized unit. The media that Nai uses are usually cheap and ubiquitous, alluding to both hierarchies of artistic media and Indian social structures.
Exhibitions
Solo Exhibitions2016 Galerie Karsten Greve, Paris, France
2015 Manish Nai, Kavi Gupta Chicago | Elizabeth St., Chicago, IL
2014 Galerie Karsten Greve, St. Moritz, Switzerland
2013 Art Basel Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Presented by Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke 2012 COMPACT, Galerie Gebr. Lehmann, Berlin, Germany
2010 Extramural, Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai, Catalogue essay by Girish Shahane
2009 Manish Nai – New Works, Galerie Karsten Greve, Cologne, Germany, Curated by Julia Ritterskamp
2007 Threading A Coded Path, Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai
2005 Minimal Structures, Apparao Galleries, Delhi and Chennai
2004 The Museum Gallery, Curated by Pinakin Patel Selected
Group Exhibitions
2014 Ethereal, Leila Heller Gallery, New York, NY Kochi Muzirus Biennale, Kochi Midnight’s Grandchildren, Kitab Mahal, Mumbai, Curated by Girish Shahane
2013 The Material Point: Reconsidering the Medium on the (Post)modern Moment, Gallery OED, Kochi, Curated by Dr. Kathleen Wyma
2012 Asia Art Archive Fundraiser, Hong KongThe Indian Parallax or the Doubling of Happiness, Birla Academy of Art & Culture, Kolkata, Curated by Shaheen Merali 9th Shanghai Biennale, Mumbai City Pavilion, Shanghai news, Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai The Skoda Prize Show, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi Art Dubai, Dubai, Presented by Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke Art HK12, Hong Kong International Art Fair, Hong Kong, Presented by Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke [examples to follow!, Premchand Roychand Gallery, Mumbai, Curated by Adrienne Goehler
2011 Abstract Articulations, Gallery Espace, New Delhi Home Spun, Devi Art Foundation, Gurgaon, Curated by Girish Shahane 5th Anniversary Exhibition, Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai India Art Summit, New Delhi, Presented by Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke India Inclusive: Contemporary Art from India, World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland, Curated by Tasneem Zakaria Mehta
2009 PANORAMA: INDIA, ARCO_Madrid, Madrid, Presented by Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke Relative Visa, Bodhi Art Gallery, Mumbai, Curated by Bose Krishnamachari
2008 Second Edition of Art Summit, New Delhi, Presented by Apparao Galleries Gallery Weekend at the Baumwollspinnerei, Leipzig, Germany, Presented by Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai
2007 1st Anniversary Exhibition, Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai
2005 Present-Future, National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai, Curated by Dr. Saryu Doshi 2003 Beppu Asia Contemporary Art Exhibition, Beppu Museum, Japan
2002 Singapore Art Fair, presented by Apparao Galleries, Chennai 2000 Monsoon Show, Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai
Awards
2012 Invited to North Rhine-Westphalia Artist Residency Programm, Düsseldorf, Germany 2011 Invited to Socrates Sculpture Park Residency, Long Island City, New York
2004 Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award
2004-2005, New York
2000 Best Watercolour Painting Award by the Bombay Art Society
Press and Publications
2015 Lee Ann Norman, “Review: Manish Nai/Kavi Gupta Gallery,” Newcity Art, July
2015 “Manish Nai Opening,” Eye On India, June
2015 Christopher Hudgens, “Episode 511: Manish Nai,” Bad At Sports Contemporary Art Talk, June
2015 Sunthar Visuvalingam, “Seeing Beyond Space and Place Through Indian Contemporary Art,” News India Times, June
2015 Sunthar Visuvalingam, “Manish Nai Opens With Panel on Contemporary Indian Art,” News India Times, June
2015 Lauren M. Heist, “From the community: Eye on India Festival Comes to Lemont.” Chicago Tribune, May
2015 Niranjan Kunwar, “Kochi and Consciousness,” The Huffington Post, January
2015 2014 Riddhi Doshi, “A ground report from India’s biggest art show in Kochi,” Hindustan Times, December
2014 Dhamini Ratnam, “Manish Nai: The Proceduralist,” Livemint, August
2014 Anita Mahadevan and Manoj Nair, Art List, Arts Illustrated, June - July
2014 Rosalyn D’Mello, “Artwork of the Week: Manish Nai’s Newspaper Wall at Art Basel in HK,” Blouin Artinfo, May
2014 2013 Zehra Jhumabuoy, Vitamin D2: New Perspectives in Drawing, Phaidon Press
2013 Karuna John, Breaking the Canvas, India Today, February 2013
2012 Rosalyn D’Mello, Blouin Artinfo India 2010 Amrita Gupta-Singh, “Textures of Silence,” Art India, September
2010 Zehra Jumabhoy, “Critic’s Picks,” Artforum, August 2010 “Pixel Power,” Timeout India, August 2010