Living Without the Gods

April 11 - August 16, 2025

Chicago-based artist Shaurya Kumar investigates how human societies construct meaning and identity in the absence of monuments and objects that once anchored their cultures. Kumar explores the transformation of artifacts when displaced from their original contexts, reflecting on the modern ruin. Through printmaking, drawing, ceramics, sculpture, photography and installation, he examines crumbled temples, relocated columns, empty tombs, and lost traditions, questioning the fate of cultural relics lost to time, museums, or private collectors. The exhibition fosters dialogue on identity, history, and diaspora. Curated by Dr. Arshiya Lokhandwala.

About the Artist

Shaurya Kumar is an artist of recollection who immerses himself in memoirs and imagery of history, context and time. His body of work addresses these topics in different ways: it explores the effects of transposition of an object from its original context to a new milieu; it considers the modern ruin, removed from its place in history and memory, and its relation to modernity and urbanization; and lastly, it reflects on the role of military and militia where specific objects are targeted and destroyed when the new regime is against the philosophy of the work itself (like in the case of bombing of Bamiyan Buddhas, destruction of artifacts Kabul and Beirut Museum, Palmyra and Mosul among others).  Kumar’s work aims to raise concern over the fate of objects that have been far removed from their context far too long, and raises questions of the individuals and institutions that alter a site, history or association of objects.

Kumar employs a diverse set of tools, media, techniques and processes including print, drawing, ceramics, sculpture and installation. His studio practice focuses on a phenomenological understanding of an object and space, while revealing a labor-intensive process in art making. Indicating notions of presence and absence, his works play with architectural ruins, transient ephemera, and contextual displacements.  

Works of Note

Mannat

Porcelain, site specific drawing with soot, graphite ink

It’s Mine, No It’s Mine, Now It’s Yours, No It’s Ours, Now It’s Missing!

Handwoven tapestry with wool, dye, 120×120 inches and twelve sculptures of varying sizes, acrylonitrile butadiene styrene

A Case of Broken Hands

Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene
42 pieces, dimensions varies

Ephemeral Offerings
Bamboo, powdered natural flowers. essential oils, resin

Where Yoginis Once Danced
Archival inkjet print on hanhemuhle photo rag paper

Living Without the Gods is sponsored by Hundal Foundation, Anita & Prabha Sinha, Cynthia & Thomas Bridges, Arts Midwest, Threshold Art Gallery, CIBC