Manish Pushkale, Carte Blanche

Entitled To Whom the Bird Should Speak?   the installation is designed as a voyage of discovery, through writing, archaeology and fleeting memories, reminding us of the difficulties of preserving intangible heritage and of a culture’s vulnerability in the face of rapid global change.

Inside, we discover a visual and abstract representation of the Bo tribe’s now- extinct “language of birds”, whose last speaker, Boa Sr., passed away in 2010. The journey continues through a fragile architectural labyrinth of screens measuring three meters high and nineteen meters
wide. 

There are hidden birds singing within the installation, like a figurative substitution for the absent voice of Boa Sr and his “song of birds”, which has sunk into oblivion.

Manish Pushkale (born in 1973) is a self-taught artist who, after studies in geology and archaeology, enrolled in the Bharat Bhavan multi-arts complex in Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh). It was in this fertile, intellectual and creative environment that he honed his artistic style and sensibility as an abstract artist. His calm and contemplative canvases dwell upon the ebb and flow of civilisation through the themes of genesis, progress and inevitable change.

Curator:
Claire Bettinelli, production manager, contemporary collections and exhibitions (Guimet Museum)
Manish Pushkale, artist

Publication :

Carte Blanche à Manish Pushkale
To Whom the Bird Should Speak?
Mapin Publishing,
128 pages, bilingual, French & English

Cover image: Détail de l’installation To Whom the Bird should speak? , 2023, gouache, watercolour and mixed media on paper 

© Manish Pushkale, courtesy Galerie Akar Prakar