As part of the Menil’s opening of Experiments with Truth, exhibition curator and Menil director Josef Helfenstein and the award-winning filmmaker and artist Amar Kanwar will discuss the ideas behind the development of the exhibition, as well as Kanwar’s works that are included. Josef Helfenstein has long been fascinated by the mahatma and his influence, and sought to create an exhibition exploring the resonance of Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolent resistance and satyagraha (“soul force”) in the visual arts.
Kanwar’s film A Season Outside (1998) addresses different experiences of violence and nonviolence, while his complex installation The Sovereign Forest (begun 2012) explores conflicts around commercial activities and expropriations that affect local communities, economies, and the environment in Odisha, a state in east central India on the Bay of Bengal.