TYEB MEHTA Bearing Weight Featured Event

Join us for a curator-led walkthrough of TYEB MEHTA Bearing Weight (with the lightness of being), marking the birth centenary of one of India’s most significant modern artists. Led by Roobina Karode, Director and Chief Curator of KNMA, the session offers deeper engagement with the exhibition’s curatorial framework and key works.

Bringing together over five decades of Mehta’s practice, the exhibition features more than 120 works across painting, drawing, sculpture, film, and archival material. Known for his stark compositions and charged figuration, Mehta explored themes of conflict, vulnerability, rupture, and transformation through a visual language shaped by compression and spatial tension.

The walkthrough focuses on recurring series such as Falling Figure, Mahishasura, Kali, Bull, and the Diagonal, examining how Mehta’s restrained palette and structural clarity intensify emotional impact. Archival materials and his short film Koodal further illuminate his process and evolving artistic vision.

This session invites participants to move beyond viewing into close reading, reflecting on how curatorial choices shape narrative, context, and interpretation within a retrospective exhibition.

About the Curator:

Roobina Karode is Director and Chief Curator of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, a role she has held since its inception in 2010. A curator, educator, and art critic, she has led over 50 major exhibitions, including retrospectives of Nasreen Mohamedi, Himmat Shah, Jeram Patel, Vivan Sundaram, Rameshwar Broota, Nalini Malani, and Arpita Singh.
With over 16 years of teaching experience and fellowships including the Fulbright Fellowship and Ford Teaching Fellowship, her curatorial practice emphasises research-driven inquiry and expanding narratives within modern and contemporary Indian art.

While you’re here, explore KNMA’s ongoing exhibition
TYEB MEHTA Bearing Weight (with the lightness of being)