bird | Spencer Museum of Art

Sonia Khurana, artist

born 1968

bird, 1999

Where object was made: India

Material/technique: single-channel video

Credit line: Museum purchase: R. Charles and Mary Margaret Clevenger Art Acquisition Fund

Accession number: 2012.0029

On display: Marshall Balcony

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Bold Women

This short video documents a performance by artist Sonia Khurana where she uses her naked body to defy both social constraints and gravity as she attempts to fly. Seemingly caught in a repeated sequence of movements that seem both funny and sad, her efforts fail. This work created a sensation in India because of Khurana’s bravery and liberation from typical conventions and expectations for women.

Corpus - Project Redefine: Phase 2

Shortly after Sonia Khurana returned to India after completing an MA at the Royal College of Art, London she included Bird in a solo exhibition in early 2000. The video immediately caused a sensation. At the time, her unabashed use of her naked body in the work was extremely unconventional in India. The work immediately signalled a new direction for contemporary art in India, and has since become an iconic piece of contemporary art by women in the subcontinent.

For Khurana this short film is about the “enclosing nature of self-image and the inarticulateness of the body.” Deploying a remote, hand-held camera (watch for the remote in her hand) she captures the “body” within her solitary studio. The silent, black-and-white, metallic ballet explores the hope and limitations of the body. Her attempts to make the body fly, and the resulting emotional outpouring balances the work on a tender border of tragedy and comedy.

Exhibition Label:
"Corpus," Apr-2012, Kris Ercums
Shortly after Sonia Khurana returned to India after completing an MA at the Royal College of Art, London she included Bird in a solo exhibition in early 2000. The video immediately caused a sensation. At the time, her unabashed use of her naked body in the work was extremely unconventional in India. The work immediately signalled a new direction for contemporary art in India, and has since become an iconic piece of contemporary art by women in the subcontinent.