30 September 2007 - March 2008
Östasiatiska museet




Spices, gaudy colours, spirituality , poverty and a booming IT industry. There are many images of India.

In the autumn of 2007, the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities in Stockholm presents the exhibition "BOLLYWOOD- Living gods of India" The exhibition takes off in Indian films, and shows how contemporary India is connected to its past through stories and myths about love, gods and heroes. Starting out in Bollywood, the Indian film industry based in Mumbai (Bombay), we delve into the India of Hinduism. Here we meet gods and people in the streets and in cinemas. The divine lovers Krishna and Rada are the prototypes for thousands of romantic plots on the silver screen; the elephant god Ganesha is a brand of cigarettes; the wild and bloodthirsty goddess Kali has given name to a car repair shop and a publishing company.

The gods belong to the everyday, but they are also worshiped in great style at various festivities all year round. But India is not only Hinduism. India is also one of the worlds largest Muslim countries. And many Christians, Jains, Buddhists and Zoroastrians live here too.

In the exhibition we let our own collections of sculptures and paintings meet newer, borrowed and purchased material, for example from Helsinki City Art Museum: popular prints, painted altar figures made of straw and clay, picture scrolls from Midnapur, printed and hand-painted Bollywood posters, contemporary photographs and a great many Bollywood films.

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Östasiatiska museet
Skeppsholmen, Box 16381
103 27 Stockholm
Sweden
TEL : 08-519 557 50/70
info@ostasiatiska.se
www.ostasiatiska.se