Gropius Bau in Berlin is giving New Delhi and Berlin-based artist and film scholar Pallavi Paul her first major solo exhibition, titled How Love Moves. Paul's earlier moving image works, most recent cinematic productions and immersive spatial installations are gathered together and displayed across six rooms at Gropius Bau. In this work, Paul seeks to intertwine two temporally distant narratives that are bound together by a common thread: breathing.
Paul approaches the camera as a singular tool that is capable of exposing reality, endeavoring to question how regimes of “truth“ arise, their epistemic validity and how they are sustained in the public discourse. Among other themes, the artist explores the current healthcare crises that have the world in their grip and contrasts them with the historical experiences of tuberculosis that left an indelible impact on society in early 20th century Germany. Paul approaches these issues with a sensitivity for the poetic and the cinematic, contemplating the meaning of breath and breathing as universal languages that encompass the world and bind together individuals and collectives.
The exhibition serves not only as a metaphorical exploration of illness in the context of New Delhi, Berlin and beyond, but also seeks to understand it as an ethical, spiritual and biopolitical phenomenon that transcends spatial and temporal limitations. The artist's multidisciplinary approach encompasses film, installation, photography and writing, through which she uncovers the tensions that are inherent between the document and its artistic form.
Pallavi Paul's works have been recently featured at venues such as Daadgalerie in Berlin, the Tate in London and Project 88 in Mumbai. The exhibition How Love Moves is open from March 22 – July 21, 2024 at Gropius Bau in Berlin. More details on the show can be found here and here.