"In a specialised society, the artist is no longer the architect, nor is the architect the artist..." - Satish Gujral

The persisting conundrum of the tenuous divide between art and architecture acts as an apt introductory provocation to Ear to the Ground, an exhibition dedicated to the works of the late Indian artist Satish Gujral. On display from February 7– 9 at the recently concluded India Art Fair 2025 in New Delhi, the exhibition layered Gujral's mixed-media assemblages (the murals he created with everyday objects), architectural drawings of the buildings he designed along with their photographs, photographs of his public murals and sculptural installations by the curator of the show, Vishal K Dar, that interpreted the recurring spatial motifs in Gujral's work in new assemblages. These juxtapositions between mediums and ways of seeing became a way to draw connections between Gujral’s different modes of practice and also to understand space making and symmetry in his architectural oeuvre.

As Dar mentions in the official release, "We witness how a sculptor’s eye is looking at primitive geometries of a circle in three dimensions—the dome, the cylinder and the arch—composing a spatio-sonic rhythm both in form and in physics where sound echoes, reverberates and then escapes. Satish’s explorations in architecture are deeply axial in composition and the grammar of form-making." The idea of space as transcending three-dimensionality, in this respect, is also how Gujral understood architecture. For the Indian artist-architect, architecture was ‘living sculpture’—as his son Mohit Gujral notes in the official release. The idea of an architecture that ‘breathes, resonates and speaks’—an organic being that comes alive on its terrain—was for Gujral as much a criticism of what he thought was an impassive modernism proliferated by Le Corbusier in Chandigarh and the product of his cultural encounters. One particular encounter with Frank Lloyd Wright in Mexico seems to have cemented Gujral’s philosophy of organic architecture, as Dar also notes in a conversation with STIR.

Of that meeting with Wright, Gujral recalls in his memoir asking why the American architect never included murals in his buildings, to which Wright is said to have responded, “Well, an architect needs an artist to resurrect a dead wall, but I never design dead walls.” That same quality is apparent in Gujral’s buildings. The idea of a sonic quality to the architecture is almost obvious when one looks at the projects on display, the rhythmic arrangement of the forms—in which arches repeat, domes expand and recede in the images and the spaces march in the plans. Highlighting the name of the exhibition, as first a subtle nod to the artist who was hearing impaired for most of his life, Dar explains in conversation, “I kept thinking of the idea of how the body, gravity, ground work through these projects and that was one of the reasons for titling it Ear to the Ground, but also meaning that you've got the pulse of what is of the soil.”

Dar's curation makes use of the different mediums in which Gujral worked to underscore this idea. Putting the murals and sculptures in dialogue with the photographs and the plans of the buildings Gujral designed not only helps emphasise the use of the geometrical axis, but how some of the images defy that axis, resulting in new, unforeseen perspectives on the works as a whole. Whereas the murals, which Dar describes as following the 'arte povera' genealogy, have a specifically architectural quality to them—the pipes resembling corridors, the drains resembling courtyards; the buildings, critics have noted over the years are distinctly sculptural.

It's surprising to discover that Gujral's practice as an architect and his understanding of Indian modernism has been insufficiently written or theorised on. In fact, many Indian architects criticised Gujral’s first and perhaps best-known project for the Belgian Embassy in Chanakyapuri. However, as Dar makes clear through his intelligent manipulation of the Gujral Foundation’s archives, there is something to be said about Gujral's understanding of primitive geometry resonating across many works. Moreover, the turn towards regionalism in Indian architecture that Gujral’s work is emblematic of—showcased here through the case studies of the Belgian Embassy and Ambedkar Sthal in Lucknow—is expressed through motifs that represent not only Buddhist architectural elements but Islamic domes and Moorish arches, creating a hybrid language that is particularly noteworthy.

As part of an ongoing dialogue between the past, present and a future for architecture beyond Gujral's view of a 'specialised society', Dar's sculptural interventions for the exhibition are worth noting, giving the forms in Gujral’s work a new modular language. Oftentimes, the murky line that divides art and architecture results in the preference for either form or function in design. The delicate balance of the two, which is often demanded as a sign of good architecture, is lost in the insistence that architecture is, a science, not a craft. Good architecture sits somewhere in between, honouring craftsmanship while unrelinquishing the demands of function, here shown in Gujral’s work. As Gujral notes in the official release, “This exhibition is not only a tribute to [my father’s] vision but also a way to inspire new generations to see the world through his unique lens.”

The exhibition is part of the Gujral Foundation’s centenary celebrations for the renowned Indian artist who passed away in 2020. By showcasing architectural works alongside his artistic practice, the idea was to render a complete image of an artist who defied categorisation and present a way of practicing architecture beyond the mundane. “What I'm interested in is to start looking at architectural exhibition making where we're looking at not just architecture but the expansion of architecture and the overlaps within architecture. [The endeavour here was] to demystify architectural drawing, sketches and model making through exhibition making; hence [ensuring it is] more relatable and accessible for a large cross section of people,” Dar notes in conclusion.