Everything we do is music – Curator’s view

'Everything we do is music' curator Shanay Jhaveri discusses how the exhibition came into being, and some of its keys themes.

'Everything we do is music' traces a long history, from early Indian miniature paintings (Ragamalas) through to drawings, animations and video works from the present day. Including works by pivotal Indian and Pakistani artists such as Nasreen Mohamedi and Lala Rukh, the exhibition features a number of works previously unseen in the UK. It presents newly commissioned pieces by Michael Müller and Sarnath Banerjee alongside works by contemporary artists such as Prabhavathi Meppayil, Shahzia Sikander and Dayanita Singh . The exhibition also explores the influence of Indian classical music on important American artists such as Lee Mullican and Marian Zazeela, and its wider influence on western popular and counterculture.

Whilst the range of approaches represented in the exhibition are diverse, drawing and mark making form the core of each artists’ response to music – journeying from the figurative and graphic to the abstract and performative.

Shanay Jhaveri is Assistant Curator, South Asia, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Recent exhibitions include Companionable Silences (Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2013); India: Visions from the Outside (Cultuurcentrum Brugge, Bruges, 2012), and Everything we do is music (Drawing Room, London, 2017).