Museum Bhavan

First Edition, 2017. 298 pages. Nine softcover accordion fold books in stiff wrappers and one saddle stitched volume measuring 3.75 x 5.5 inches, housed in a handmade cloth box. 241 images throughout all nice volumes.

“In Museum Bhavan Dayanita Singh creates a new space between publishing and the museum, an experience where books have the same if not greater artistic value than prints hanging on a gallery wall. Consisting of nine individual ‘museums’ in book form, Museum Bhavan is a miniature version of Singh’s traveling exhibition of the same name whose prints are placed in folding expanding wooden structures (her ‘photo-architecture’), which she likes to interchange at will.”

The images in Museum Bhavan—old and new, intriguingly literal and suggestive—have been intuitively grouped into lyrical chapters in a visual story such as “Little Ladies Museum” and “Ongoing Museum,” as well as more specific series like “Museum of Machines.” Following her Sent a Letter (2008), the starting point for this project, the books are housed in a handmade box and fold out into accordion-like strips which Singh encourages viewers to install and curate as they wish in their own homes. The exhibition thus becomes a book, and the book becomes an exhibition.

All nine books in pale blue wrappers & volume titled Conversation Chambers are in Fine condition. Handmade cloth box is also in Fine condition. An exceptional volume of work in scope and format, now quite scarce.