With Museum Bhavan, Dayanita Singh (born 1961) forges a new space between publishing and the museum, an experience where books have the same--if not greater--artistic value as prints hanging on a gallery wall. Consisting of 10 individual “museums” in book form, Museum Bhavan is a miniature version of Singh’s eponymous traveling exhibition, with prints placed in folding expanding wooden structures. The images in Museum Bhavan have been intuitively grouped into lyrical chapters in a visual story such as “Little Ladies Museum” and “Ongoing Museum,” as well as more specific series such as “Museum of Machines.” As in Singh’s first project, Sent a Letter (2008), the books are housed in a handmade box and fold out into accordion-like strips which the artist encourages viewers to install and curate as they wish in their own homes. The exhibition thus becomes a book, and the book an exhibition.
Featured image is reproduced from 'Dayanita Singh: Museum Bhavan.'
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Photo-Eye Blog
Adam Bell
Offering an intimate look at Singh’s life and concerns, Museum Bhavan is a private museum made public, reflecting not only Singh’s attempts to make sense of her work and expansive archive, but also offering a poetic meditation on the medium and its rich possibilities to order and construct meaning from the past and the world around us.
Huffington Post India
Somak Ghoshal
Museum Bhavan . . . dispenses with specificities . . . it stirs the eye into thought, instead of letting it become fixated on the particulars depicted within each frame.
Friday, April 6, from 3-5PM, Artbook, Steidl, and The Museum of Modern Art C-MAP Asia group invite you to a presentation of Dayanita Singh: Museum Bhavan, a conversation between Dayanita Singh and Sean Anderson, Associate Curator, Department of Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern Art, followed by a book signing. continue to blog
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FORMAT: Hbk, 10 vols, 3.5 x 5.5 in. / 298 pgs / 241 b&w. LIST PRICE: U.S. $85.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $112.5 ISBN: 9783958291614 PUBLISHER: Steidl AVAILABLE: 6/27/2017 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of stock indefinitely AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: NA ONLY
Published by Steidl. Interviews by Aveen Sen, Gerhard Steidl.
With Museum Bhavan, Dayanita Singh (born 1961) forges a new space between publishing and the museum, an experience where books have the same--if not greater--artistic value as prints hanging on a gallery wall. Consisting of 10 individual “museums” in book form, Museum Bhavan is a miniature version of Singh’s eponymous traveling exhibition, with prints placed in folding expanding wooden structures.
The images in Museum Bhavan have been intuitively grouped into lyrical chapters in a visual story such as “Little Ladies Museum” and “Ongoing Museum,” as well as more specific series such as “Museum of Machines.” As in Singh’s first project, Sent a Letter (2008), the books are housed in a handmade box and fold out into accordion-like strips which the artist encourages viewers to install and curate as they wish in their own homes. The exhibition thus becomes a book, and the book an exhibition.
