"Matter"

2014/2016

Bronze

Artist: N.S. Harsha

Born in MySore, India

Location: Roppongi Hills, Tokyo

A monkey carrying a sphere on one hand points at somewhere far away in outer space. Human beings have a long history of gazing up at starry skies and the universe, which also represents the human curiosity towards the future and the unknown worlds and the human desire to attain them. The word "matter" typically refers to a concrete substance or thing, but is this monkey trying to bring this unidentifiable mass of matter into outer space? The model of this figure is the Hanuman langur, a monkey that is worshipped deeply in Indian folk religion as the god Hanuman

About N. S. Harsha (via Mori Art Museum)

Born 1969 in Mysuru, Karnataka in Southern India, N. S. Harsha continues to live and work in Mysuru. He received a Masters Degree in Painting in 1995 from the Maharaja Sayajirao (MS) University of Baroda [Vadodara]. The artist is a recipient of prestigious awards including the DAAD Scholarship (2012) and Artes Mundi Prize (2008). He has participated in a number of international exhibitions such as the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (India, 2014); Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (2013); Dojima River Biennale (Osaka, 2013); Adelaide International Biennial (Australia, 2012); the Yokohama Triennale (2011) and the Bienal de São Paulo (Brazil, 2010). He also held solo exhibitions at Institute of International Visual Arts (INIVA), London in 2009, and Ginza Maison Hermès Le Forum, Tokyo in 2008. He was also a participant in the major international touring exhibition “Indian Highway” at the Serpentine Gallery, London in 2008 (followed by five major museums all over the world through 2012), and “Chalo! India: A New Era of Indian Art” at the Mori Art Museum in 2008 (touring to Seoul and Vienna in 2009).