Creativity, design, experience–NMACC delights audiences with public art and exhibitions

Launched in 2014, PhotoSparks is a weekly feature from YourStory, with photographs that celebrate the spirit of creativity and innovation. In the earlier 745 posts, we featured an art festival, cartoon gallery. world music festival, telecom expo, millets fair, climate change expo, wildlife conference, startup festival, Diwali rangoli, and jazz festival.

This week, a three-month visual art exhibition titled Pop: Fame, Love and Power is wrapping up at Mumbai’s Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre (NMACC). Curated by London-based Lawrence Van Hagen, it showcases the American ‘Pop Art’ movement that started in the late 1950s.

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It features works by 12 iconic artists: Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Coosje Van Bruggen, Ed Ruscha, Elaine Sturtevant, Keith Haring, James Rosenquist, Jim Dine, Robert Rauschenberg, Robert Indiana, Roy Lichtenstein, and Tom Wesselmann. Each floor of NMACC’s Art Houses features one of the three themes of the exhibition.

“I’m especially excited to see it strike a chord with younger audiences and foster a culture of creativity with inspirations that go beyond time and space,” says Isha Ambani. She also appreciates the sense of fun in the exhibition.

The displayed works have been loaned from a range of museums, foundations and private lenders across the world, including the Ambani Collection and Piramal Museum of Art.

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NMACC is located within the Jio World Centre, and features indoor and outdoor public artworks in addition to the gallery. There are also three performing arts spaces for music and theatre.

Another floor hosts ‘Silver Clouds’ by Andy Warhol, an interactive art installation with silver helium-filled pillows kept afloat by fans. Visitors can move around between the balloons and even nudge them around.

A separate section features the mesmerising exhibit, ‘Infinity Mirrored Room ― The Eternally Infinite Light of the Universe Illuminating the Quest for Truth’. Devised by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, it combines painting, LED sculpture and design for a spectacular immersive experience.

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As the lights flicker on and off, they produce limitless optical illusions, with the visitor’s own images embedded in them. Visitors are allowed in for only a few minutes at a time.

The ground floor also hosts Kusama’s public art installation of 90 organically shaped stainless-steel clouds, aptly called ‘Clouds.’ Outdoor highlights include the ‘Fountain of Joy’ and Jitish Kallat’s installation with highway signs spiralling up towards the skies.

Other attractions are ‘Kamal Kunj,’ regarded as one of the largest Pichwai paintings in India, and the largest passenger elevator in the world. Together, the public art and the 'Pop' exhibition deliver an inspiring and memorable experience for visitors.

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“An ode to our nation, the Cultural Centre aims to preserve and promote Indian arts. I hope our spaces nurture and inspire talent, bringing together communities from across India and the globe,” says Nita Ambani, Founder and Chairperson, NMACC.

“I believe this exhibition will spark fascinating parallels between these ‘golden decades’ in the US, and the global transformation India is experiencing at this very moment,” explains curator Lawrence Van Hagen.

Now what have you done today to pause in your busy schedule and harness your creative side for a better world?

(All photographs were taken by Madanmohan Rao on location at NMACC.)

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