Bringing together the striking work of rising star—global contemporary artist Manjari Sharma—with the diverse historic collections of the Birmingham Museum of Art, this exhibition introduces nine of the most significant deities of the Hindu pantheon and their contemporary relevance in art and faith, serving as a gateway to the concept of darshan—seeing and being seen by the divine. The vibrant, varied, and sometimes contradictory stories of these gods—as well as their familial relationships with each other—are shared through the works in this exhibition.

Artist Manjari Sharma makes work that is rooted in portraiture and addresses issues of identity, multiculturalism, and personal mythology. Her Darshan series began as a multiyear, crowdfunded project through the online platform Kickstarter. She aimed to photographically recreate the experience of encountering nine Hindu deities in temple settings, a project which required the cross-continental organization of a large team of models and craftspeople. An extraordinary aspect of Sharma’s work is her commitment to creating each scene without digital manipulation. All items visible in the images were present when photographed, not digitally added later. The Birmingham Museum of Art is the only institution to have the entirety of the Darshan series in its collection.

All of the featured works are from the Museum’s own collection, many of which have never been displayed to the public. Expanding Darshan is a testimony to the inextricable and continuing relationship between art and religion that promotes a shared visual language even beyond Hinduism, resonant with Buddhist, Jain, and even more recent forms of Islamic art specific to South and Southeast Asia. The wide-ranging aesthetic systems and worldviews of these works of art reflect complex multiculturalism that embraces diversity in a myriad of ways.

Expanding Darshan is curated by: Katherine Anne Paul, the Virginia and William M. Spencer III Curator of Asian Art at the Birmingham Museum of Art.

PriceFree

Unexpected and nearly invisible histories sometimes unite objects in the Birmingham Museum of Art’s collections. For two American artists, painting and mountain climbing were connected pursuits. Georgia Engelhard and Elaine Hamilton cultivated careers in alpine trekking even as they also worked as professional artists. For these women, painting a few decades apart in the mid-twentieth century, this connection is not only coincidence; it can also be read as a metaphor. Both women not only literally climbed mountains, they also climbed figurative mountains in the art world.

At a time when women artists often struggled to build professional careers—whether due to gender or race-based discrimination, familial responsibilities, limited opportunities, or other hurdles—Engelhard and Hamilton created professionally, exhibited, and found markets for their work. Despite the professional success Engelhard and Hamilton found in their lifetimes as both artists and mountaineers, their work is rarely seen in art collections and museums. Yet both belong on display at the BMA, showcasing their prowess as painters and their perspectives as trailblazers in alpine climbing.

This focus installation drawn from the Museum’s collection highlights the work of Engelhard and Hamilton. Here their work is paired with the work of five other women artists who ventured into the mountains, conceptually or physically, to create the pieces you see. While none of these women were alpine mountain climbers aside from Engelhard and Hamilton, each work conveys a point of view rooted in the mountains.

The Birmingham Museum of Art is pleased to announce Wall to Wall, a new ongoing project that invites artists to activate the Museum’s lobby and cafe with artwork inspired by the city. Recognizing the lobby and cafe as vital places of exchange and communal gathering, the BMA seeks to make these spaces more accessible by providing immersive, site-specific experiences created uniquely for the Museum.

The inaugural iteration of Wall to Wall will feature four works created by Alaska-based artist Merritt Johnson. These works have been constructed into large wall coverings that stretch across the lobby and cafe walls, creating an immersive exhibition experience. After visiting Birmingham and learning about its environment and inhabitants, Johnson created the works which she calls “… love letters to land and water, and the resilience and wisdom they contain. They are acknowledgements of the weight recent human behavior has placed on them, and on the gravity of the imbalances current behavior and legislation enforces.”

In each painting, Johnson considered the land and water of Birmingham while also exploring the ways people have recently devalued land in search of profit. Johnson’s work engages the intersectional harm to land, water, and communities of color resulting from coal and steel industries, institutional and environmental racism in which communities of color are disproportionately harmed. Her work for the Museum suggests the obstructions we build, limiting our capacity to see land, water, and each other; the inevitability of our connection, and the beauty, abundance, and resilience of the land as an example for us to follow.
Exhibition Sponsors
Wall to Wall is presented by PNC

Additional support is provided by the Alabama State Council on the Arts; the National Endowment for the Arts; The EyeSight Foundation of Alabama; and the Dora and Sanjay Singh Endowment for Global Arts, Culture, and Education, a fund at the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham.