Detail of Mrinalini Mukherjee’s fibre red and purple sculpture depicting  unfurling forms that resemble female genitalia.

Museums Without Men: Mrinalini Mukherjee

Read the complete audio stop transcript

In 2019, The Met held the first U.S. retrospective of Indian artist Mrinalini Mukherjee.

The exhibition included Aranyani (1996), a towering sculpture made of knotted colorful rope that was placed directly on the gallery floor. Through exploring Mukherjee’s work and career trajectory, Met curator Brinda Kumar reflects on how museums may work to more proactively shine a light on women artists.

Museums Without Men: Mrinalini Mukherjee

0:00
0:00

Listen to the conversation, or read the full transcript below.


Transcript

KATY HESSEL: In 2019, The Met held the first U.S. retrospective of Indian artist, Mrinalini Mukherjee. Her body of work included these incredible towering sculptures made out of knotted colorful rope that were often placed directly on the gallery floor.

Composite image showing front and side views of Mrinalini Mukherjee’s freestanding fibre red and purple sculpture depicting  unfurling forms that resemble female genitalia.

Mrinalini Mukherjee (Indian, 1949–2015). Aranyani, 1996. 55 7/8 x 50 x 41 in. (142 x 127 x 104 cm). Gift of the Estate of Mrinalini Mukherjee, in celebration of the Museum's 150th Anniversary, 2020 (2020.211.2) © Mrinalini Mukherjee Foundation

BRINDA KUMAR: She really developed a very unique practice especially in her Indian context, but even more broadly there was really nothing quite like her works.

HESSEL: That’s curator of modern and contemporary art, Brinda Kumar.

KUMAR: These were freestanding fiber works that seemed to rise out of the ground and both kind of resist and lean into gravity at the same time. They have these passages of knotted fabric that move in and out of abstraction. They tend to be recognizable at one moment and then they melt into something a lot more amorphous.

HESSEL: Even though Mukherjee’s work was so distinctive, she didn’t live to see the eventual acclaim it gained. The Met’s exhibition and acquisition of her works unfortunately happened in the years after she passed away.

KUMAR: I don’t want to say that she wasn’t recognized during her own lifetime. I think she was being recognized. She died tragically earlier than she should've. But many times, women artists are recognized very late in their careers or in some instances, posthumously.

HESSEL: As Brinda mentions, the fact that Mukherjee didn’t become more widely known until after her passing isn’t unusual. There are so many incredible women artists who go largely overlooked during their lifetimes.

Brinda and other curators hope to change that.

KUMAR: A number of colleagues and I, it is a priority for a number of us to really make a conscious and a conscientious effort to take every opportunity to highlight and shine a light on the brilliance of the work of the women artists in our collection.

We’ve still got a long way to go. I think to this day, you will still find misogynist responses to art. Just this morning I saw a response to a post that I posted saying that in two thousand years, there have been no great women artists.

So resisting that, and dismantling that takes time, takes consistency, and it takes perseverance.

###


This audio tour is one in a series of tours called Museums Without Men produced by Katy Hessel in collaboration with institutions across the globe, such as the Fine Arts Museum San Francisco, the Hepworth Wakefield, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and Tate Britain. The series encourages museum visitors to seek out work by great women and gender non-conforming artists in these institutions who, simply by virtue of their gender, were often overlooked and underrepresented.



Contributors

Katy Hessel
Art historian, author, and curator
Brinda Kumar
Associate Curator, Department of Modern and Contemporary Art

Printed graphic image of a white woman seductively holding a poppy flower. The Woman and the peony are an orange color and the background of the image is black and the woman's dress and hat are created just using orange outlines.
How did women emerge as active creators of art and visual culture in the nineteenth century?
Shannon Vittoria
April 19
Profile view of Farah Siraj smiling, while sitting with a guitar in front of a microphone.
Video
Named Jordan's “Musical Ambassadress,” Farah Siraj’s unique idiom melds influences from Arabian music, flamenco, and jazz.
Farah Siraj
March 25
Two members of Alsarah & the Nubatones in performance. The figure on the left is singing, while the figure on the right plays guitar.
Video
Founded in 2011, Alsarah & the Nubatones have dubbed their sound “East African retro-pop.”
Alsarah & the Nubatones
March 18
More in:Women's History