Gallery XXL in Mumbai, India, is presenting Witness and Evidence: deliberations on ruins by Sajid Wajid Shaikh and Jofre Oliveras, from May 18 - June 29, 2024. The exhibition includes mixed media works by Indian artist Sajid Wajid Shaikh and Spanish artist Jofre Oliveras. Shaikh is a multimedia artist and is gaining popularity rapidly in the Indian art scene, while Oliveras creates social art and engages in art activism. Joe Cyril, CEO of XXL Collective and Gallery Director, Gallery XXL joins STIR for an interview that sheds light on the work in the show and the discourse it builds around the topic of ruins.

For Witness and Evidence, Shaikh and Oliveras artistically explore ruins and the political dimensions of the degradation and preservation of historical sites. They also question the responsibility of artists, curators and cultural institutions in creating awareness around the upheaval of public projects concerning ruins.

Oliveras’ recent series Digital Ruins (2024) sees the artist paint iconic ruins from across the world in a bird’s-eye view perspective. Interestingly, these works have been rendered on aluminium and wood in the shape and scale of smartphone screens. As Cyril tells STIR, the locations that the artist has depicted are the Taj Mahal, Hampi and the Qutub Minar in India, Mohenjo-Daro in Pakistan, the Colosseum in Rome and the Parthenon in Greece.

Cyril describes the series, saying, “The works mimic the metal organs that we have learnt to carry with us, which consist of maps that direct us to the digital ruins we find online as we incessantly scroll through archives of data.” Digital Ruins reflects on the hyper-documentation of historic sites that is part and parcel of our current juncture in history and arises out of the prevalence of digital technologies. Cyril considers the digital documentation of such sites to constitute “ruins of the virtual era.”

The works mimic the metal organs that we have learnt to carry with us, consisting of maps that direct us to the digital ruins we find online as we incessantly scroll through data archives. – Joe Cyril, CEO, XXL Collective and Gallery Director, Gallery XXL

Beyond the Digital Ruins series, the works on view at the art gallery include the provocative piece If your version of heaven on earth requires someone else to experience hell, then you're an oppressor (2024) by Shaikh. The drawing is amongst the artist’s “palimpsests” (as he refers to them) – contemporary art pieces composed of illustration work on smaller pieces of paper stuck together. Cyril does not provide a definitive reading of the piece, which is understandable given the current political climate in India surrounding the state-sanctioned erasure of historic sites; instead, he shares a poetic piece of writing by one of the exhibition’s co-curators, Vidur Sethi:

"Palimpsests in process, these papers are documents of your influences.

As many black arrows densify, a large hollow arrow comes to form different backgrounds. These arrows are directions thrown from an airplane for people to escape a conflict-ridden zone. These arrows are attacks. These arrows are cursors. On your face, your ears, your back. One might say that there is no evidence that these arrows exist. But then how does toleration get formed? When does patience refuse to exist?

If your version of heaven on earth requires someone else to experience hell, then it assures you’re an oppressor, and perhaps silently crafting arrows, becoming them."

Witness and Evidence is co-curated by Giulia Ambrogi, Co-Founder and Curator, St+art India Foundation and XXL Collective; Sarah Malik, Curatorial Associate, Gallery XXL and Sethi, Curator, St+art India and Gallery XXL. The exhibition is a small yet compelling offering from the relatively new Gallery XXL, which held its first exhibition, Outsiders, in 2023. It provides visitors with new viewpoints on ruins. The show goes a long way in building a steady audience for one of Mumbai’s most promising young art galleries.

‘Witness and Evidence: deliberations on ruins by Sajid Wajid Shaikh and Jofre Oliveras’, is on view from May 18 - June 29, 2024, at Gallery XXL in Mumbai, India.