Anim pariatur cliche reprehenderit, enim eiusmod high life accusamus terry richardson ad squid. 3 wolf moon officia aute, non cupidatat skateboard dolor brunch. Food truck quinoa nesciunt laborum eiusmod. Brunch 3 wolf moon tempor, sunt aliqua put a bird on it squid single-origin coffee nulla assumenda shoreditch et. Nihil anim keffiyeh helvetica, craft beer labore wes anderson cred nesciunt sapiente ea proident. Ad vegan excepteur butcher vice lomo. Leggings occaecat craft beer farm-to-table, raw denim aesthetic synth nesciunt you probably haven't heard of them accusamus labore sustainable VHS.
Art Column: The stolen statue, and how it came back to India
Art World
Kinjal Trivedi
The stolen statue, and how it came back to India
While Installing her show at a Canadian Museum, an artist discovered a looted statue in the collection. Now it’s headed back to India. During her research for an exhibition at the MacKenzie Art Gallery, Divya Mehra developed suspicions about a Hindu sculpture.
This story started in India in 1913 to Saskatchewan in 2020—and it all ends with the repatriation of an 18th-century Indian statue of the goddess Annapoorna.
When artist Divya Mehra was invited last year to stage an exhibition at the MacKenzie Art Gallery in the Saskatchawan town of Regina, she began to research the collection, which was built around a lawyer Norman MacKenzie in 1936. She developed suspicions about a sculpture thought to represent Vishnu, one of the great trinity of Hindu gods.
What set off alarm bells for Mehra was a simple account that MacKenzie had acquired a piece in India. She had to know more, and looking into his papers, she found that the sculpture was stolen from an active temple.
“So I asked, ‘Can I take a look at this?’ and they allowed me to go into the vault,” she said. “And it’s clearly not a male statue! So I reached out to a few different folks that I know, including a curator at the Peabody Essex Museum, who correctly identified it. I spoke to John Hampton, interim CEO at the MacKenzie, and I requested that the statue be repatriated.”
Based on this discovery, Mehra titled her show at the museum “From India to Canada and Back to India (There Is Nothing I Can Possess Which You Cannot Take Away)”
And the museum agreed to return the statue.
While Installing her show at a Canadian Museum, an artist discovered a looted statue in the collection. Now it’s headed back to India. During her research for an exhibition at the MacKenzie Art Gallery, Divya Mehra developed suspicions about a Hindu sculpture.
This story started in India in 1913 to Saskatchewan in 2020—and it all ends with the repatriation of an 18th-century Indian statue of the goddess Annapoorna.
When artist Divya Mehra was invited last year to stage an exhibition at the MacKenzie Art Gallery in the Saskatchawan town of Regina, she began to research the collection, which was built around a lawyer Norman MacKenzie in 1936. She developed suspicions about a sculpture thought to represent Vishnu, one of the great trinity of Hindu gods.
What set off alarm bells for Mehra was a simple account that MacKenzie had acquired a piece in India. She had to know more, and looking into his papers, she found that the sculpture was stolen from an active temple.
“So I asked, ‘Can I take a look at this?’ and they allowed me to go into the vault,” she said. “And it’s clearly not a male statue! So I reached out to a few different folks that I know, including a curator at the Peabody Essex Museum, who correctly identified it. I spoke to John Hampton, interim CEO at the MacKenzie, and I requested that the statue be repatriated.”
Based on this discovery, Mehra titled her show at the museum “From India to Canada and Back to India (There Is Nothing I Can Possess Which You Cannot Take Away)”
