The works were created between 2008 and 2026.
On the 20th July, the Victoria and Albert Museum will unveil a display of sculpture from artist Bharti Kher that brings her work into conversation with the museum’s historic collections.
It will bring together four significant works which wil be displayed across the museum’s Dorothy and Michael Hintze Sculpture Galleries at V&A South Kensington, while brand new piece Gaia (2026), will be unveiled for the first time on the Exhibition Road Courtyard.
Through her work, Kher’s sculptures explore the intersections of mythology, womanhood and cultural identity, tracing the ever-shifting processes of transformation that define lived experience. Living and working between London and New Delhi, Kher has developed a distinctive sculptural language shaped by movement across cultures.
At the centre of her work., Bharti Kher is the female body, rendered through sculptural forms that blur the fantastical and the real. A place where the physical and the metaphysical converge as spaces of possibility, pushing the boundaries between human and nature, ecology and mythology. Referencing the traditions of European sculpture, while incorporating materials and visual vocabularies associated with South Asian cultures like saris or bindis, Kher reimagines established narratives through a contemporary lens. Hybrid beings, human-animal forms and fragmented bodies recur throughout her work.
The four pieces include Gaia (2026), Ghost (2024), Animus Mundi (2018) and Warrior with Cloak and Shield (2008), highlighting key themes that have shaped Kher’s practice for over three decades. Installed among the V&A’s collections, these sculptures engage with and expand the stories told within the galleries.
Whitney Kerr-Lewis, Curator, Sculpture 1800-now at the V&A, said: “We are delighted to bring Bharti Kher’s work to V&A South Kensington, placing it in dialogue with our historic collections. Reflecting on themes of mythology, transformation, belonging and displacement, Kher’s works invite visitors to make unexpected connections, offering new ways of exploring both contemporary sculpture and the objects and histories that shape the museum.”
To find out more about the V&A visit: https://www.vam.ac.uk/