Eyewitness

Born in 1964 in New Delhi, Kanwar occupies a central position in the international art scene for his ability to combine political inquiry with lyrical tension, historical memory with philosophical reflection.
The work serves as the focal point of the exhibition. Seven screens arranged throughout the space form a large-scale video installation, where images emerge and dissolve in alternating and simultaneous rhythms. There is no linear narrative progression: Kanwar describes the sequence as a “visual haiku,” a constellation of autonomous fragments that, when juxtaposed, generate meaning. Visitors traverse an abstract, suspended visual landscape where temporality expands and contracts.
Superimposed on the images are texts written by the artist–stories drawn from oral traditions, collective memories, and autobiographical resonances. The result is a meditation on non-canonical forms of knowledge and the potential to develop new tools of resistance and reconciliation. Formally, The Peacock’s Graveyard marks an evolution from Kanwar’s earlier documentary strategies. Editing no longer aims to prove or denounce; it instead constructs a meditative fabric suggesting the need to reorganize thought. Kanwar proposes a metaphysical recalibration of vision, an exercise of attention capable of resisting the brutal polarization of opposing truths that characterizes the present.
The work is conceived as a collection of stories to accompany daily life–tools to interrogate the arrogance of power, collective illusions, and the violent drifts shaping contemporary societies. The roots of this inquiry lie in the postcolonial history of the Indian subcontinent and the still-open wounds of the 1947 Partition. Kanwar’s works examine power dynamics, forced migrations, India-Pakistan conflicts, and human and environmental rights violations linked to economic development.

The genesis of his artistic trajectory can be traced to two pivotal events in 1984, when he was a history student in New Delhi: the assassination of Indira Gandhi and the violence against the Sikh community, and the industrial disaster in Bhopal caused by toxic gas leakage at a chemical plant. From that moment, political activism intertwined with documentary filmmaking, forming a practice centered on testimony gathering and visual archiving. Works such as A Season Outside (1997), focused on the militarization of the India-Pakistan border; The Torn First Page (2004–2008), on Burmese resistance; The Lightning Testimonies (2007), centered on women survivors of sexual violence; and To Remember (2008), reinterpreting Gandhi’s nonviolent philosophy, outline a coherent practice combining historical research with poetic narration.
Within the Venetian context, these works form an organic overview of Kanwar’s practice. Art becomes both a tool for analysis and a statement, capable of illuminating local movements opposing land expropriation, episodes of institutional corruption, and social and environmental conflicts. At Palazzo Grassi, this meditation on impermanence transforms into an invitation to rethink ideologies and solidarity, a lucid exercise in which images take on the responsibility of opening new spaces of possibility.

Featured image: Amar Kanwar, The Peacock’s Graveyard, 2023, Pinault Collection. Installation view Amar Kanwar. Co-travellers, 2026 Ph. Marco Cappelletti Studio © Palazzo Grassi, Pinault Collection