bean - review of sackler puja art exhibit

8/14/2019 Bean - Review of Sackler Puja art exhibit

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Exhibition Reviews

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PUJA EXPRESSIONS OF HINDU DEVO TION. TheSackler Gallery Smithsonian Institution May 121996 ongoing

SUSAN S. BEANPeabody Essex Museum

Puja is a sta rtling exhibition. Not so much be-cause of wha t it is, as because of wh ere it is. Puja dis-plays images of Hind u deities th at are t he focus ofworship toge ther w ith objects used to perform ritualexpressions of devotion. Two goals are clearly evi-den t in the exhib ition: one is to introduce Hinduismto the non-Hindu public; the othe r is to relate theworks shown in Western galleries of Indian art , likethe Sackler, to th e purpo ses for which they were cre-ated. Both of these aims are a dmirably met.

Sarah Ridley, Assistant Head of Education atthe Sackler Gallery, and Stephen Huyler, anthro-pologist and photographer, conceived Puja to pres-ent Hinduism as i t i s pract iced, through thereligious images and ritua l uten sils central to wor-ship. The exhibition is draw n largely from the col-lection of Paul F. Walter, with supplements fromGeorgana Foster, David Nalin, and others. Ridleyand H uyler also relied on the H indu com munity inthe Washington area to install shrines, adorn im-ages, and participate in accompanying videos aswell as ongoing prog ram s in connection with th e ex-hibition.

When th e exhibition was being developed, newsof it provoked some discussion am ong South A sian-ists. Some thou ght it was high time a n art museumacknowledged tha t the sculptures in their g allerieswere mad e for religious observances. Oth ers antici-pated the installation as a betrayal of the art mu-seum mission to display exemplary works, theiroriginal purposes and contexts notwithstan ding. Inthe ar t museum setting , Hindu religious images areshown a s unad orne d forms; in real life such imagesare treated as living beingsbathed, fed, dressed,bejeweled, and garlanded, so much so that their

forms a re hard ly visible. As an anthropological re-viewer of this ex hibition, I was predictably biasedtoward a presen tation which strives to convey cul-tural significance, especially when the objects dis-played are little understood by most of the peoplewho view them .

Puja, w hen I saw it, was the only exhibition atthe Sackler Gallery which attem pted to show relig-ious images as they are intended to be seen. The ex-hibition depends for its impact on the contrastbetween its presentation of religious images andthe traditiona l mu seum in stallation of images else-where in the m useum. Puja is emp hatically not anar t exh ibition; it does not direct th e viewer to focusprimarily on the visual qu alities of the objects dis-played; it invites visitors to consider how these ob-jects are used in th e practice of Hind uism. Despiteits considerable merits, the exhibition would havemade a more modest impression were it installed inan anthropology m useum wh ere the no rm is for ob-jects to be contextually situate d.

The exhibition is organized arou nd th ree princi-pal deities worshipped by HindusS hiva, V ishnu,and Devi (including their various manifestationsand families)and thre e principal settings for wor-ship temple, home, and outdoor shrine. Room-sized spaces have been created for Shiva as wor-shipped in a temple, Vishnu in a domestic shrine,and Devi in an outdoor shrine, each accompanied byrelated images and objects. The sizes and shap es ofthe rooms, the color scheme, and insta llation m akethe exhibition contents readily accessible for view-ing in digestible segm ents. The presen tation style ofthe ex hibition, which was designed by Joh n Zelen, isconsistent with wh at I have come to expect from th eSacklernotably elegant, yet distinctly subordi-na te to and suppo rtive of the objects on display.

Two wall texts a t the en trance to the exhibitionaim to engage and orient visitors (fig. 1). One lureswith compelling factsfor exam ple, tha t Hind uismis the th ird larg est religion in the w orld and , by im-plication, imp ortan t for non-H indus to learn abou t.The second label introduces visitors to puja, ac ts of


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30 MUSEUM NTHROPOLOGY VOLUME 21 NUMBER 3

1. En trance to the Puja exhibition.

devotion, in which reverence is expressed to god or

to aspects of the divine throug h invocations, pray-ers, songs, and rituals using images and other ob-ects which can also be seen as works of art. Thegods, visitors a re told are personifications of cosmicforce and the art objects on display are links be-tween worshippers and the divine.

The first gallery is organized around a Shivalinga (abstra ct phallic image) and Shiva s vehicle,the bull Nandi. The linga is shown as it would ap-pear during worship with offerings of fruits and

flowers, oil lam p, conta iners a nd ladle for holy wa-ter, burn ers for incense and camphor, and a bell. Atone side are the elaborately dressed and orna-mented images of the medieval saint Su nda ra andhis wife, Para vai, who are also shown in an adjacentphotograph in their unadorned state as they would

norma lly be seen in an art museum (fig. 2). In the

installation the images look as they would in a tem-plenearly concealed by cloth and garlands. TheShiva gallery sets a format of expectation that isfufilled almost consisten tly through out the exhibi-tion. The images u sed in doingpw/as are contextual-ized throug h th eir decoration, accompanying ritualuten sils, photography, video footage of worship, andlabel texts elucidating iconography and conveyinguse in worship.

Adjacent to the Shiva galleries is a separate

area accomm odating abou t twenty people where avideo about puja plays continuously. The video ex-plicates and illustrates pujas in temples, homes,and outdoor shrines. Produced by Cherchez LaFemm e Productions in collaboration with the Sack-ler, the video combines footage of pujas in


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2. Sundara and Paravai dressed iorpuja with adjacent photo as they normally would app ear in an art exhibit.

Washington-area homes and comm entaries by localHindus with seg me nts shot in temples and outdoorshrines in Ind ia, very effectively placing puja, theact of wo rship, at th e ce nter of the exhibition.

In the next gallery, Vishnu is presented as he isworshipped a t hom e. A fully equipped shrin e is dis-played accompanied by a video of home worship. lso included in the a rea are images and objects ar-ranged to present the iconography of Vishnu, hisweapons for destroying evil, his incarnations ava-tars) and conso rts. Adjacent to this area is a spaceprovided with chairs and reading matter for allages. W ith its invitation to sit and ta ke a break, thisresource room is a welcome respite in an exhibitionthat invites intense viewing. During my visit Ifound it used also as a place to sit and talktwo visi-

tors were there, fittingly, discussing religion.The final area is dominated by photos, video,

and models of rural outdoor shrines to Devi, theGoddess. In th e Devi area proper there is a video of apuja in Puri d istrict in which the goddess Chandi isinvited to ente r a sacred tree th at is viewed as the

spirit of the com munity. A facsimile of an outdoorshrine has been created with a photomural back-drop before which shrine objects and votive terra-cotta elepha nts have been placed.

The goddess area is sepa rated from th e V ishnuarea by a small corridor-gallery with two large

cases. s one walks throug h th e gallery, on one sideare padukas (sandals) for saints and asce tics fromMaharashtra, on the other side are bhuta masksfrom Karnataka worn in performances duringwhich the w earer becomes the deity. Many viewerswill be confused by this section because it is not sub-sumed by either tripartite organizing framework:Vishnu-Shiva-Devi and temple-household-outdoorshrine. (One cannot help thinking tha t the sand alsand masks are displayed because the curators

found the collections irresistible.) Visitors confu-sion is likely to linger an d interfere with th eir un-dersta ndin g of the last gallery devoted to worship ofthe Goddess.

This slippage between the organizing princi-ples of the exhibition and the actual presentation


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draw s atten tion to the limitations of the frame-work: the complexities of Hindu practice cann ot beencompassed by the dual trinitiesof deities andplaces of worship. In pre sentin g Hinduism this way,the ex hibit s creators have simplified the historical,regional, and sectarian manifestations of the di-vine. One might argue tha t because their p resenta-tion at times overflows its constructed framework,something tru er to the n atu re of Hindu practice re-sults. However, the chosen framework ha s consider-able merit . I t does encompass much of Hindupractice and it does so in a way tha t H indu consult-ants and visitors to the exhibition (judging fromtheir written comments) found suitable and ade-qua te. The inclusiveness and didactic clarity of theframework for an intended audience of novices toHinduism is a real pedagogical accomplishmentand it would have been better to maintain the twoorganizing t r ini t ies , despi te their l imitat ions,throughout the exhibition.

Despite this lapse, and despite the limitationsof exhib itions a s didactic m edia allowing only briefexplan ations of concepts and p ractices, and th e con-straints on museums as settings for conveying re-l i g ious concep t s and f ee l i ngs , Puja i s verysuccessful in making Hinduism accessible to aJude o-Ch ristian public. The exhibition succeeds be-cause the dual trinitie s of deities and places of wor-ship work so well in organizing Hindu practiceexpressed throug h objects and spa tial organization.Hinduism lends itself to museum presentation , be-

cause its religious practices, like exh ibitions, privi-lege the v isual (images and c ontain ers for offerings)and spatial (places for worship). The installationperforms a function for which museum exhibitionsare a prim e m edium: bringing into a public venuecultural practices which, while not considered pri-vate, are normally restricted to group members.The Hindu W ashingtonians who advised the cura-tors, helped install the shrine s, and participated inthe video took the opportunity to move their relig-ious practices more squarely onto the Americanscene. Indeed it was at first surprising to learn tha tmany visitors to the exhibition are Hindus; theircom ments revea l not only comfort w ith the in stalla-tion, but appreciation for the opportunity to makethe ir religious practices bette r known to non-HinduAmericans.

The m ajority of visitors, however, are those whocome to the Free r an d Sackler to see Asian art. Pujawill enrich the ir app reciation by focusing on the re-ligious lives of objects displayed elsewhere in themu seum as art. For those unacq uainted w ith Hinduprac tice, it is safe to say tha t they will never look atHindu religious art in quite the same way again.Ironically for this anthropologist-reviewer, seeingthese religious images installed contextually in anart museum underscored the importance of alsoshowing these works decontextualizedas artforthe sheer magnificence of their forms as technicaland expressive achievem ents of the sculptors whocreated them.

bean - review of sackler puja art exhibit

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