When Gods Have a Chat
An exhibition in Mumbai, India, brings gods of the East and West together in an exchange of culture and ideas
Body Content
In the rotunda of The Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS) museum in Mumbai, visitors are surrounded by the gods.
For the next several months, the Hindu deities within the museum’s collection will be displayed alongside an unprecedented selection of sculptures of ancient gods from the Getty Villa Museum, The British Museum, and Berlin State Museums.
This new model of international collaboration, called the Sharing Collections program, is designed to highlight the interconnectedness of the ancient world by putting a pantheon of Indian, Egyptian, Assyrian, Greek, and Roman deities in conversation.
“What makes this project exceptional,” says Mahrukh Tarapor, curatorial consultant with CSMVS, “is that it is the first time that an East/West project has evolved with India being asked to shape the narrative.”
Curators at the CSMVS chose the sculptures included in the resulting loan exhibition Ancient Sculptures: India Egypt Assyria Greece Rome to contextualize India’s position in the ancient world and inspire questions like:
“Why did the Greeks and Romans give so much importance to a trained and perfect body?”
“What was the Indian philosophy behind sculpting the divine?”
“How did geography impact early cultures and shape their beliefs in art?”
Discover more about the impact of the Sharing Collections program, and watch visitors get their first look at this ambitions cultural exchange in the video below:
