22/12/2023
New Issue Alert!
Almost a decade ago, Hervé Chandès, artistic managing director of Fondation Cartier in Paris, had come across a photograph of Studio Mumbai in a magazine. “It fascinated me. It was rich with possibilities, of creation, people, aesthetic, and invention. I kept the magazine nearby, like a talisman, to meet again sometime,” he told AD. Eventually, in March 2022, Fondation Cartier formally invited Bijoy Jain to create and curate an exhibition for the Foundation.
Titled, Breath of an Architect, it opened on 9 December 2023 and goes on till 21 April 2024. With this, Jain invites the visitor to experience silence, a word that was seminal in early discussions with Chandès and the Fondation team. “I think the function of the work is to evoke that silence. But it is not a lack of sound, it is a sound which is full in itself,” he says.
On an afternoon in early December, as team AD arrived at the Fondation Cartier to shoot this cover story, a sliver of sunlight poured into the Jean Nouvel–designed glass building of Fondation Cartier. Jain stood on one far corner of the room, silent, a hint of a smile, an in situ artwork in front of him at his feet, and a glorious beech tree behind drenched in its own fall colours. It was cinematic.
