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The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

Rina Banerjee: Make Me a Summary of the World

Oct 9, 2020 – Jan 10, 2021
919 Broadway, Nashville, TN 37203, United States

“The mystery that you leave in your work allows for entry,” says the artist Rina Banerjee, who was born in Calcutta in 1963 and raised in the West. “Where else can we have the pleasure, if not [in] art, to explore when we are incoherent, but are saying something?” Banerjee creates ineffable sculptures made of all kinds of things—bird cages, shells, crystal beads, fabric, fans, feathers, and much more. Her pieces have the delicacy of a Persian miniature, the fantasy forms of Hindu gods. They read like surreal species, multicultural hybrids. This mid-career survey has been touring since 2018, and includes paintings, sculptures, and installations made during the last 20 years. —L.J.

Rina Banerjee, “In Breathless Confinement She Wooed an Uncertain Danger…,” 2018. Mixed media. Courtesy of Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris/Brussels. © Rina Banerjee. Installation view of “Rina Banerjee: Make Me a Summary of the World,” Frist Art Museum, Nashville, 2020. Photo: John Schweikert