Krishna. Religion, Art and Pop Culture
This exhibition has ended.
Over 100 objects trace Krishna from religious tradition and classical sculpture and painting to modern pop culture, including five large-format Pichwai wall hangings.
Museum websiteMore in Munich
The swing is 2.65 metres tall, gilded and carved with mythical creatures, and it was made to rock a figure of Krishna. When its hanging divan moved, miniature swings set into the frame rocked along with it. It may no longer be set in motion, so the museum built a copy you can sit on for a selfie.
More than 100 objects from the museum's own collection, some shown for the first time, follow Krishna in three parts: his life, from butter-stealing child to charioteer; worship at home and at festivals like Holi, where baby Krishna figures are fed, dressed and rocked to sleep; and pop culture, where you finish among cases of record covers, posters, comics and T-shirts. Some prints were made in Munich, and the Schwäbische Zeitung's critic spotted Alps where the Himalaya should be.
She called it "very much worth seeing". About Africa's reviewer liked the logical layout but wanted more sculpture. Tickets are €6, free for under-18s, Tuesday to Sunday 9:30 to 17:30, until 8 November.
Editor's pick
Over 100 objects follow Krishna from religious tradition, classical sculpture and painting into modern pop culture, including five large Pichwai wall hangings.
Look for
The gilded Krishna swing
Look for the miniature swings built into its 2.65-metre frame, made to rock along with the divan, and the copy beside it you can sit on.
Five Pichwais
Large painted temple hangings for Krishna, the most colourful things in a colourful show.
Jimi Hendrix's Axis: Bold as Love
The album cover paints Hendrix and his band as Vishvarupa, Krishna's universal form with countless heads and limbs.
Krishna and Radha, printed in Munich
A late-19th-century lithograph from the Baumgartner workshop, one of the devotional pictures Munich printed by the thousand for buyers in India.
The portable folding altar
A late-18th-century shrine from Tirupati that folds shut so a household could take its Krishna on the road.
Good for
- Cheap Culture
- Nerding Out
- Rainy Days
- Teenagers
Skip if
You want a sculpture show: one reviewer's only complaint was that there wasn't more of it.
With kids
Under-18s and school pupils get in free, and kids can sit on the replica Krishna swing for photos.
Also at Museum Five Continents
On now nearby
Nearby
Image credits
6
- Liminal SpacesCourtesy of Bavarian National Museum
- StadtLandschaftCourtesy of Bavarian National Museum
- Museum Five ContinentsStrubbl / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Alpine MuseumBurkhard Mücke (Pimpinellus), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
- Munich ResidenzAvi1111 dr. avishai teicher / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Bavarian National MuseumRufus46, CC BY-SA 3.0