Covering Letter, by Jitish Kallat, Goes On Display at Phila Museum of Art

Dear Friend

With the installation of a Gandhi-inspired work at the Art Museum, we are urged to make peace with our foes—politically and otherwise

Nov. ten, 2016

Thursday morning. Two days after the stop of one great national nightmare—the 2022 presidential entrada—and the starting time of an fifty-fifty greater struggle: Healing. What does that fifty-fifty expect like? What it isn't, what it tin can't be, is a continuation of the deplorable nasty proper noun-calling; it tin't be a doubling-downwardly of threats and accusations and media hysteria. It may require as unprecedented an experience equally this entire ballot season has been, a complete reversal of the way we've been talking, and thinking, and relating to each other. Information technology may crave trying to understand the other side.

Yes, that will be hard. And yep, these are hard times for our republic. But permit'southward exist articulate: As hard times go, we notwithstanding don't alive in war-eviscerated Syrian arab republic, or in Transitional islamic state of afghanistan—or in 1939. That was the twelvemonth when all of Europe was on the brink of war, threatened by a tyrant who could nonetheless, perhaps, have been stopped earlier it was too late. And so it was that from across the earth, a unmarried great human, Mahatma Gandhi, fabricated a historic plea for peace, in a style almost unimaginable today: by appealing to Hitler's humanity.

That note is the footing for Jitish Kallat'due south Covering Letter of the alphabet, an installation exhibit donated to the Philadelphia Museum of Art by the Pamela and Ajay Raju Foundation, and for a high schoolhouse essay-writing contest the Foundation is launching this calendar week with The Citizen and 6ABC. (Ajay Raju is co-founder of The Citizen.) Raju, CEO of Dilworth Paxson and a philanthropist who sits on the PMA'south board, bought the slice in the spring (before the peak of the Presidential election). He was moved, he says, by the embodiment of absolute peace urging the embodiment of absolute war to stand downwards, and was struck peculiarly by the words that start and end the alphabetic character: friend.

"I don't think Gandhi thought with those mere seven sentences he'd convince Hitler to contrary course," Raju says, noting that the British intercepted the missive so it never got to Hitler. "He was writing a letter to humanity—to Martin Luther Male monarch, and Nelson Mandela, and SEPTA strikers who protested without violence; for that dandy to reconsider in sixth grade if he should bully; for Donald Trump; for the commenters on philly.com; for all of united states of america who have a Hitler and a Gandhi inside of us."

In the essay competition, for which one entrant will win a $10,000 scholarship from the Raju Foundation, we're asking high schoolhouse students to apply the themes of Covering Letter to their own lives.

Covering Letter is the offset piece of Indian art that will be included in the Museum's permanent contemporary art collection, rather than part of the South Asian department. It's part of the PMA's effort—led by Raju—to make Philadelphia a hub of Indian gimmicky art, and to broaden the Museum'south holdings beyond the European greats. On display until March at the Perelman Building, the piece consists of a dark hallway, at the end of which the words are projected onto a screen of continuously falling mist.

An avid collector of Indian art, Raju encountered Covering Letter of the alphabet with the artist while on a trip to Republic of india, and had an immediate emotional reaction, at first to the mist. "The Catholic in me idea this must be what it is like when you're chosen up to Sky," he says. After, Kallat told him nearly another viewer's reaction: "He saw it as representing Hitler'due south gas chambers." This contrast, Raju says, is function of what is magical well-nigh the work. "It's actually an individual experience," he notes. "Inside our ain hearts, we have pessimism and optimism. I'1000 not convinced one side is right or wrong. I stand with Gandhi, that the long arc of peace is right. But some have a unlike approach."

In the essay competition, for which i entrant will win a $10,000 scholarship from the Raju Foundation, we're asking high schoolhouse students to apply the themes of Covering Letter of the alphabet to their ain lives, answering 2 questions:

• In this era of social media, in which modes and methods of communication are more arable than ever earlier, what tin can Gandhi'southward letter tell us about how nosotros interact with those who disagree with us?
• Is the written word now but a means to lob rhetorical grenades, or is in that location hope for seeking common basis with our opponents with linguistic communication that appeals to our shared humanity?

The competition is open to whatsoever loftier school student in the region, and will exist judged past a group of journalists and other local figures. The prize will be awarded at a closing anniversary event at the Museum in March. Just Raju intends for students to come across the exhibit before so, as inspiration for their essays and their lives. Any student who brings to the PMA a hard re-create of the essay prompts—which will be sent to all surface area high schools—will become two complimentary tickets to the Museum, to see the slice. In this way, Raju hopes to open the Philly art scene to a new world of young people. "I'm hoping whole new neighborhoods of Philadelphians will find the Museum," he says. (Read Raju's essay inspired past Covering Letter of the alphabet here.)

"Gandhi was writing a letter to humanity," Raju says, "to Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela, and SEPTA strikers who protested without violence; for that bully to reconsider in sixth grade if he should bully; for Donald Trump; for the commenters on philly.com; for all of us who accept a Hitler and a Gandhi inside of us."

Gandhi'south letter never made it to Hitler; the British intercepted it. And Hitler, of course, did not stop his aggression. Less than two months after, he invaded Poland, followed in quick succession by declarations of state of war from around the globe. Gandhi abhorred violence of any kind, some say to a mistake; non-violent protest conspicuously would not have stopped Hitler. But he followed up that first brusque alphabetic character with a longer one 17 months later on, in which the Indian leader explains why he calls Hitler "friend":

"That I accost you equally a friend is no formality. I ain no foes. My business in life has been for the past 33 years to enlist the friendship of the whole of humanity by befriending mankind, irrespective of race, color or creed."

Is at that place room in our country for a sentiment like this? If not, then nosotros are truly doomed to a post-election that is no less heartbreaking than the campaign.

Header photograph courtesy of Galerie Templon, Paris and Brussels © B.Huet/Tutti.

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Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/covering-letter-jitish-kallat/

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