Vikrant Bhise: Archival Historicity/Dalit Panthers | Asian Art Museum
Exhibitions
Filled with a revolutionary spirit, Vikrant Bhise’s Archival Historicity series offers a dynamic visual archive of the Dalit Panthers, a group dedicated to seeking freedom from caste, gender, and labor inequities for India’s most oppressed and marginalized peoples. Founded in 1972 in Mumbai and taking inspiration from the Oakland-based Black Panther Party for Self Defense, the Dalit Panthers sought to align themselves with their Bay Area counterparts in a global struggle for equality and social change.
Bhise’s intimate, postcard-sized works are made up of many layers: painted and printed elements from manifestos and pamphlets interact and overlap with newspaper images, urban monuments, and symbolic cartoons. Installed in a continuous sequence spanning a gallery wall, these selections from the ongoing series “evoke the small, localized experiences that add up to global movements, while underscoring the enduring significance of the Panthers’ call for equality,” says Padma Dorje Maitland, Malavalli Family Foundation Associate Curator of the Art of the Indian Subcontinent. This exhibition marks their first showing in a major museum.