When artists walk into an abandoned nightclub

Let’s play a game. You enter a 5,500 sq. ft hall and the first thing that meets the eye is a table heaving with 365 empty wine glasses, and a neon sign that reads “Party Is Elsewhere”. As you move closer, you spot two hammers attached to the table. They move periodically and hit the table but often miss the glasses. Is this some twisted game? An invitation to pick up a glass in case you are thirsty? Or is it an art installation?

That question “What is it?” lingers as you look at the 58 artworks spread across two floors of The Radial, a space in Delhi’s bustling Connaught Place. More so because the venue was an abandoned nightclub till late last year, when it was recast as a temporary “museum” by curators Amit Kumar Jain and Reha Sodhi.

Peeling walls, spider webs, stained toilet tiles and broken floors and windows form the backdrop for contemporary paintings, textile works, installations and digital art—none labelled, none explained—creating a setting far removed from the pristine white-wall conventions of a typical art exhibition. The works are part of Party is Elsewhere, an ongoing exhibition featuring South Asian and international artists.

Art has long been presented in warehouses, particularly during fairs and biennales across the world. But unconcealed, run-down buildings usually don’t make the cut as exhibition venues. “Museums across the world are struggling to get people in. When it comes to galleries, there’s this discomfort… there’s this idea that it’s meant only for the 0.01%. That white cube isn’t very inviting. That’s the idea that we are trying to break away from by doing a show here in a bustling area like CP (Connaught Place),” says co-curator Jain, an independent collections adviser who has worked with Devi Art Foundation, Saffronart, and Bengaluru’s Museum of Art & Photography (MAP). “None of the works you see here are for sale, nor are they labelled. We want you to look at the art and the space without instructions so you ask us questions.”

Five steps away from the wine glass-filled table stand two life-size heads facing each other—one intact, made of sand. It depicts a man smiling, seemingly content. Its counterpart, cast in white, has disintegrated enough to unsettle the viewer. “That’s camphor; it’s slowly evaporating (when exposed to air). Maybe 10 years from now, it won’t exist,” explains Jain of the “white” face, which—along with its sand twin—was created in 2004.

What’s the takeaway? Depends on you: a meditation on life’s fleetingness, or simply a literal demonstration of chemical decay.

In a corner of the open hall, a pillar functions like a time-travel device from the time the space was a club. It bears a sketch of a hookah, surrounded by bubble quotes—“happy to serve”, “ask for coal change anytime”, and “OMG”, the name of the nightclub, once famous in the neighbourhood for its hookahs, back when they were legal in the city. “We did think about removing the sketch but decided against it. Past and present can very well exist together to shape the future.”

The nightclub’s kitchen (the yellow-stained white tiles on the wall give it away) is now the location for another striking installation.

On the floor is a heap of photographs, capturing old Delhi bazaars, pasted on to what look like the red phone covers sold on the footpath outside the building. What does it mean? Perhaps it mirrors the way consumers sift through piles of goods in local markets, or simply offers a pictorial record of the shifting moods of places like Jama Masjid, Fatepuri and the Red Fort.

The exhibition continues upstairs inside a big hall that was once the office of a media house. There is a series of toy TVs playing film stills, showing an upset or sad Meena Kumari. Why only her? Because she was the finest female actor of Indian cinema, one who played mostly tragic romantic heroine roles?

The floor has a toilet that doesn’t stink but looks nausea-inducing. If you are curious enough to walk inside, you’ll find the floor projecting a light showing ants crawling on the floor. Is it a symbol of decay?

As you leave The Radial, you’re left with more questions than answers. Are artists comfortable showing their work in such a shabby space? Jain insists they are. “They want their work to be interpreted in different ways—and that happens when it’s presented differently, beyond the white cube. That’s the whole point of art, right? It makes you think.”

You can, of course, choose to learn who made what you have seen—there’s the option of a guided tour. Otherwise, there’s a board at the entrance of each room mentioning the artists behind the art you’ve seen across the two floors: Party is Elsewhere (2004) by Sudarshan Shetty; the two heads by Alwar Balasubramiam (2004); the old-bazaar photograph installation by Vivan Sundaram (The Great Indian Bazaar, 1997); the toy TVs by Sheba Chhachhi (The Mermaid’s Mirror, 2005); and the ants video by Mithu Sen (Icarus, 2007).

Or you can leave without knowing any of it, carrying bemused wonder.

At The Radial, F Block, Connaught Place, New Delhi till 28 February (11am-7pm; closed on Sundays and Mondays).