Ranu Mukherjee: A Bright Stage

Image: Ranu Mukherjee: A Bright Stage, 2018

Welcome to our latest contemporary art installation! This piece by Bay Area artist Ranu Mukherjee is created for the museum’s public space, Wilsey Court. Whether they are heading into the galleries or meeting a friend, visitors to the de Young always end up in this spot! Performances happen here as well. The title of this work, A Bright Stage, evokes a setting where voices are amplified and listened to and where you may feel as if you are on a stage.

Take a look around the space. Observe this work from upstairs and downstairs.

How do the colors of the walls make you feel? Where do you prefer to experience A Bright Stage from, and why? What materials or mediums can you identify? (Hints: linen, silk, animation, paint . . .) If you were given a “stage” to work with, what would you create, and why?

Symbolism:

Banyan tree

The canopy of a banyan tree offers shade and space for community gatherings. The banyan tree, also called strangler fig, grows by attaching itself to other trees, killing them in the process. In A Bright Stage, this act of “strangling” references Britain’s nearly ninety-year colonial rule in India and the people of India reclaiming the banyan as their national symbol.

Is there a place that holds significant meaning for you?

Activists

Take a close look at the some of the individual pieces of linen. Embedded in the banyan forest are figures! They were painted using simple contour lines and depict historically significant activists (a person who campaigns to bring about political or social change).

What is something you could do to bring positive change?

Birds

The animated birds on the screens may remind you of a puzzle as it is coming together and being pulled apart. These individual bird species are now extinct. The idea of extinction could mean the loss of a species or even symbolize the loss of something important, like a person, a value, or an idea.

What is something you feel like we are in danger of losing, and why is it important to you?

Ranu Mukherjee communicates with us by incorporating many rich symbols into her artwork.

Image: Detail of Ranu Mukherjee: A Bright Stage, 2018