SYDNEY.- From ancient stone sculptures to vibrant paintings and a new installation made of silk and cotton, Avatar: Forms of Vishnu brings to life 15 centuries of South and Southeast Asian art devoted to stories of Vishnu. On view at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the exhibition features almost 200 works, many shown in Australia for the first time, including loans of international significance.
Across centuries and cultures, artists have celebrated the stories of Vishnu and his avatars through extraordinary works of art. Multiple artistic threads are brought together in Avatar: Forms of Vishnu, an exhibition spanning sculpture, painting, textiles, jewellery, photography and installation. Featuring the work of historical and contemporary artists from India, Indonesia, Nepal, Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Australia, the exhibition reveals diverse visual languages and regional adaptations of Vishnu’s iconography and mythology, exploring the role of the avatars, creation myths and potent narratives including the Ramayana and Mahabharata epics.
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Art Gallery of New South Wales Director Maud Page said: ‘This ambitious and original exhibition brings incredible works to Sydney for the very first time, reflecting our commitment to present bold, globally resonant exhibitions that connect audiences with artistic practices from around the world. The exhibition celebrates the richness of South and Southeast Asian cultures. These timeless stories with universal themes will resonate deeply with communities across New South Wales.’
The exhibition is co-curated by Melanie Eastburn, Senior Curator of Asian Art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and Dr Chaitanya Sambrani, Associate Professor of Art History and Curatorial Studies at the Australian National University. They have crafted an immersive exhibition to draw audiences into stories that extend beyond religion and explore universal themes of love, devotion, transformation and renewal, highlighting their continued relevance to contemporary experience.
‘Vishnu and his avatars have captivated audiences for centuries. Spanning more than 1,500 years of artistic expression, the exhibition presents works that reveal the continuing appeal of these narratives and the ways artists and viewers have enjoyed, interpreted and reimagined them across generations,’ said Eastburn.
‘We invite visitors to enter a world of awe and wonder. A deliberate moment of transition at the entrance welcomes visitors to a creative universe expressed through multiple artistic traditions. The exhibition celebrates the diversity of form and expression that makes the stories of Vishnu’s avatars resonant across artistic, philosophical, ethical and political spheres,’ added Dr Sambrani.
Avatar features some of the earliest known sculptural representations of Vishnu from the National Museum of Cambodia, including a sixth-century sculpture of Krishna holding up Mount Govardhana, demonstrating early Khmer stonework, and a lintel from the pre-Angkor period. Once installed above a temple door, the lintel is one of the earliest objects to depict a reclining Vishnu and the birth of Brahma.
Making its Australian debut is a newly conserved seventh-century sculpture of the horse-headed avatar Kalkin or Hayagriva, which was rediscovered in the 1920s and reunited with its pedestal and feet in 2014. This is the first time the conserved sculpture has been exhibited outside Cambodia. Other highlights include a painting from the earliest known illustrated manuscript of the 2000-year-old tale of Harivamsa (stories of Krishna), on loan from Museum Rietberg in Switzerland, and a magnificent bronze sculpture of a standing Narasimha, on loan from the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS Museum) in Mumbai.
The nine contemporary artists featured in the exhibition are Gitanjali Das, Kalyan Joshi, Jumaadi, Desmond Lazaro, Nalini Malani, Pushpamala N, Kalam Patua, Sumakshi Singh and Satyanarayan Suthar.
Showing for the first time in Sydney, following her presentation at this year’s Venice Biennale, New Delhi-based artist Sumakshi Singh has created a new installation of woven cotton and silk inspired by the architecture of a 12th-century sun temple at Konark in Odisha, as well as the legend of Narasimha. Titled Threshold, the work presents a moment of emergence in a liminal space between presence and absence in response to a 13th century sculpture of Narasimha with his consort Lakshmi.
One of India’s most renowned contemporary photographers Pushpamala N also brings a female perspective to the exhibition through a series of nine photographs. Playing the primary character, the artist reimagines the story of princess Sita, wife of Vishnu’s avatar Rama using performance and photography to question the representation of women in traditional narratives.
Visitors can engage with a digital experience that brings Kalam Patua’s Kalighat paintings of Vishnu’s avatars to life through animation. Merging legend with interactive touchscreen technology, these interpretations preserve the expressive storytelling of the original works while inviting audiences into a contemporary encounter. The original paintings, on loan from the Museum of Art and Photography (MAP), Bengaluru, are also on display.
