Starting Feb 2024, we’ll showcase 12 objects from our collection associated with the 12 sun signs. Bookmark this page because we will update it every month with a zodiac-match from our collection. Starting with Pisces…
Pisces, the fish (February 19 – March 20)
Say hello to Pisces with this dreamlike watercolour by Anju Acharya. In the painting, the fish appears to be preparing to give birth. The overarching themes in Acharya’s series ‘Unborn’ are birth, death, and decay. She draws on her personal pregnancy experience. She considers how this connects her to all the female species in the cosmos who go through the same birthing process, fraught with doubts, anxiety, agony, and inexplicable emotions. Get a closer look here.
Aries, the ram (March 21 – April 19)
Image: Jahangir, Aries Zodiac Silver Rupee, 1027 (Hijri year) / AD 1618 © Sarmaya Arts Foundation 2015.N.89.5
We enter Aries season with this coin issued by Mughal emperor Jahangir in 1618 CE, featuring the figure of the ram. A great patron of the arts, Jahangir took a keen interest in coinage during his reign. Among his innovative coinage, the most controversial yet unique ones were the Zodiac coins, in which star constellation figures replaced inscriptions detailing the month of issue on the reverse of the coin. Get a closer look.
Taurus, the bull (April 20–May 20)
Image: Lord Shiva on Nandi, Togalu Gombeyatta leather puppet © Sarmaya Arts Foundation 2017.44.24
Bull season comes in strong with Nandi, Lord Shiva’s ultimate ride-or-die companion. The Destroyer of the Universe counts on Nandi not only as a vahan or vehicle, but also as the guardian of his home, Mount Kailash, and principal among his disciples. In Shiva temples, a statue of the bull is usually placed facing the sanctum; this is to symbolise the yearning of the mortal mind for the supreme truth. The iconography of the handsome Nandi is modelled on Bos taurus indicus or the South Asian zebu bull with its massive humped back. Lord Shiva and Nandi are depicted riding into battle in this leather puppet from the Togalu Gombeyatta tradition of Karnataka. When he is shown this way, he is described as Vrishavahana Shiva. This puppet would make an appearance in a staging of the Sanskrit poem, Kiratarjuniya by Bharavi, which describes a scene between Arjuna and Lord Shiva from the Mahabharata. See more puppets here.
Gemini, the twins (May 21–June 21)
Image: My Lollypop City: Gemini Rising, 2005, oil on canvas, Arpita Singh © Sarmaya Arts Foundation 2022.15.2
In her 2005 oil painting, My Lollypop City: Gemini Rising, Arpita Singh creates an effervescent landscape of Delhi filled with playful details and provocative ideas. Under pink candyfloss clouds and a custard-apple sun lies a city crowded with solemn men who seem to be awaiting further instructions from some higher authority. Singh is a celebrated and prolific Indian artist whose landscapes are maps of memory that trace personal connections with urban geographies. The text she adds to her paintings are rarely about the work itself; they are often found fragments or phrases from magazines etc that the artist associates with the completion of the art-making process. See more modern & contemporary art here.
Cancer, the crab (June 21 – July 22)
Image: Kakra Mal Chatri – Kaag Bhushan, 2022, acrylic on canvas, Mayank Shyam © Sarmaya Arts Foundation 2023.9.1
It’s the season of Cancer the Crab and we love the jaunty vibe of this handsome crustacean from Mayank Shyam’s painting, Kakra Mal Chatri – Kaag Bhushan. The crab plays an important role in the creation story of the Gond tribe to which the artist belongs. The Gonds believe that when god or Bada Dev was creating a world for humans, it was the crab who helped lay the ground for us to walk on. Mayank explains, “When the soil is brought to him by kekda-ji or the crab, it possesses such brilliant and varied colours like brown, black, red, muddy green, white and yellow. The colour of soil is different in different countries and continents. Even when it appears to be one uniform colour, if you really look you will realise it carries so many different elements and minerals, all ground together by the atmosphere into fine pieces.” See more of Mayank Shyam’s art here.
Leo, the lion (July 23 – August 22)
Lion chariot at Chamundeshwari Temple, Mysore, by Dr Pigou, albumen print, c. 1856, © Sarmaya Arts Foundation 2019.47.1(94)
You can tell a lot about a Goddess by her ride. Chamundeshwari, who is widely worshipped in Karnataka, is usually picturised sitting atop a lion that’s frozen in a fearsome pose: jaws open in a roar and one enormous, bloody paw suspended over an eviscerated demon. You don’t have to be a believer to receive the warning. In Hindu mythology, Chamundeshwari is an avatar of Kali, an enraged goddess striding into battle against all the amassed forces of evil in the world. As her vahan, the lion is a symbol of righteous anger and swift justice. To honour this legend, in 1848, the Maharaja of Mysore Krishna Raja Wodeyar III gifted a wooden temple car adorned with a massive carved lion to the Chamundeshwari Temple. During festivals, an idol of the Goddess Chamundi would be taken on a procession through Mysore, seated on its back.
