6 Weathers
“A stone is a diary of the weather, like a meteorological concentrate. A stone is nothing but weather itself, excluded from atmospheric space and banished to functional space. In order to understand this, you must imagine that all geological changes and displacements can be resolved completely into elements of weather. In this sense, meteorology is more fundamental than mineralogy, which it embraces, washes over, ages, and to which it gives meaning. A stone is an impressionistic diary of weather, accumulated by millions of years of disasters—not only of the past, but also of the future: for it contains periodicity.” Osip Mandelstam
Atul Bhalla weaves this work together through the words of the exiled Russian poet Osip Mandelstam, raising pertinent questions around the Earth’s own perspective on humanised history, and envisages meteorology rather than minerology as a more substantial record of what future events might hold for us. Bhalla’s investigations of natural elements and occurrences are both scenic and sardonic; as he juxtaposes the seeming self-sufficiency of nature with our own vulnerability, he lulls us into the momentary silence before an inevitable storm that has perhaps been a millennium in the making. Shot with the Western notion of still life in mind, he somehow blames the colonial powers for objectifying nature for its only use and consumption.
Atul Bhalla (IN)
Atul Bhalla is an internationally exhibited conceptual artist, Professor for visual art at the Department of Art Media and Performance at Shiv Nadar Institute of Eminence, NCR, India.
Bhalla works on environment urgencies, exploring water’s physical, historical, and political significance in the urban and non-urban environments of several global cities and regions across the world. His artworks incorporate photography, installation, sculpture, video and performance. Bhalla’s recent engagements include a project Auscultation - False Clouds and Real Deluges a solo show at Vadehra Art Gallery which engages with climate change along the 28th North Parallel, partnering with World Weather Network and KHOJ New Delhi.
He has been awarded the Rockefeller Bellagio Residency for 2025. He was virtual Artist in Residence at Cornell University (2020) and Mellon Artist Research Africa Fellow at University of Witwatersrand (2018). Bhalla’s work has been exhibited in international venues, including the Pompidou Centre (Paris), Benton Museum of Art (Storrs, CT), Bhau Daji Lad Museum (Mumbai), Craft Contemporary (Los Angeles, CA), Europalia (Liege), Gaia Center Museum (Santiago de Compestela, Spain), Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, MA), Haverford College (Haverford, PA), Kunsthaus Langenthal (Switzerland) and the University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg).
He has also been included in curated shows such as the Fukuoka Asian Art Triennial 4 (2009), the Newark Museum’s “INDIA: Public Places, Private Spaces” (2008) and the Fotographie Forum Frankfurt’s “Watching me — Watching India: New Photography from India,” (2006), FotoFest Houston TX 2016 and 2018.
His work is part of the Harvard Art Museums, the Smithsonian Asia Art Museum and KNMA collections besides others.
He has published two books on his performative works, ‘Yamuna Walk’ University of Washington press, Seattle and London and “What will be my Defeat?’ GFLK Galerie für Landschaftskunst Hamburg, and an extensive analysis of his work can be found in ‘You always step into the same river.’ Vadehra Art Gallery Publications
