Reading the Muraqqa: Researcher POV

Tantric card depicting Hayagriva Murti, Not yet identified artist, Late 20th century, Rajasthan, India, Pigment painting on paper, PTG.02506
Join researcher Yanush Batra for a walkthrough of Reimagining the Muraqqa, MAP’s latest exhibition.

The exhibition brings together traditional paintings from the personal collection of writer, photographer, and artist Waswo X. Waswo, generously gifted to MAP. Many of these works were originally inexpensive objects sold as “antiquities,” or what Waswo came to call heritage paintings. Over time, however, these seemingly modest works have revealed themselves to be a layered and complex visual record of a changing India.

Taking its title from the muraqqa—a pre-modern album in which paintings, photographs, calligraphy, and other fragments are assembled to form a larger whole—the exhibition explores how meaning can be created through juxtaposition, annotation, and sustained looking.

Rather than presenting these works as isolated objects, the exhibition invites viewers to consider the narratives, memories, and associations that emerge when images are placed in conversation with one another. Through this walkthrough, we'll trace the ideas and curatorial choices behind the exhibition, offering insights into the collection, the history and form of the muraqqa, and the ways in which these paintings invite us to rethink inherited categories of art.