A talk by New Delhi-based contemporary artist, Atul Bhalla, followed by a conversation on the politics and aesthetics of water.

Speaker: Atul Bhalla, Artist; Associate Professor, Department of Art Design and Performing Arts, Shiv Nadar University

Moderator: Sugata Ray, Assistant Professor of South Asian Art, History of Art Department

Panelists: Lauren Kroiz, Assistant Professor of 20th Century American Art, History of Art Department and Robert Goldman, Professor of Sanskrit; Catherine and William L. Magistretti Distinguished Professor in South & Southeast Asian Studies

Sponsors: Institute for South Asia Studies, Department of History of Art

U.C. Berkeley’s Department of the History of Art and the Institute for South Asia Studies have organized a roundtable with Atul Bhalla, a renowned Delhi-based contemporary eco-artist. The artist’s talk titled, “You Always Step into the Same River!,” will be followed by an interdisciplinary conversation on the politics and aesthetics of water in a global field with Robert Goldman, Lauren Kroiz and Sugata Ray.

For the past decade, Bhalla’s art has addressed the socio-historical importance of water in urban environments around the world. Bhalla earned his BFA from Delhi University and his MFA from the School of Art of Northern Illinois University; he currently teaches in the School of Art, Design, and Performing Arts at Shiv Nadar University. His work has been exhibited in museums and galleries in the United States, India, across Europe and Asia. His most recent exhibition Atul Bhalla: You Always Step into the Same River is an immersion into the knowledge that water imparts.

You Always Step into the Same River!
Artist talk by Atul Bhalla

How it contains or is contained: Harmonizing the Hoover Dam c. 1935
Lauren Kroiz (Assistant Professor, History of Art Department)