San José Museum of Art

See what you think.

Huma Bhabha’s Receiver

  • A large robot-like alien creature stands tall. She has a turquoise body with black markings, four arms, black legs, and red toe nails.

    Huma Bhabha, Receiver, 2019. Bronze and acrylic paint, 98 ¾ x 18 x 25 in. Collection of San José Museum of Art. Gift of the Lipman Family Foundation, 2022.06. © Huma Bhabha. Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner. Photo by Glen Cheriton, Impart Photography.

    Ongoing installation

    Receiver is a phantasmal giant. The figure’s head suggests a robot or alien from a Hollywood movie, its chiseled smile characteristic of Greek statues of the Archaic period. It is androgynous and two-faced (recalling Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain religious sculpture), with one set of arms clutched to the chest like a Mesopotamian votive figure that pays homage to a deity. Receiver’s toes are painted with pink polish. 

    By looking back and forward in time and far beyond the western art historical canon in her references, Bhabha creates a unique blend of speculative fiction. Receiver’s rough, seemingly eroded texture and two-tone coloring reflect the original sculptural model’s material juxtaposition of cork and Styrofoam. By being cast in bronze, Receiver is in dialogue with western traditions of figurative monuments that define heroes and shape history. Scarred, cut, and looming, Bhabha’s dignified figure reflects the centuries of violence written on the human body and its resilience despite such trauma. As a monument it questions the notion of the “alien,” standing in testament to the dignity and strength of the discarded, forgotten, and unseen.

    Support

    Gift of the Lipman Family Foundation.

    Operations and programs at the San José Museum of Art are made possible by principal support from SJMA’s Board of Trustees, a Cultural Affairs Grant from the City of San José, and the Lipman Family Foundation; by lead support from the Adobe Foundation, the California Arts Council, Toby and Barry Fernald, Brook Hartzell and Tad Freese, the Richard A. Karp Charitable Foundation, Tammy and Tom Kiely, the Knight Foundation, Evelyn and Rick Neely, Yvonne and Mike Nevens, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Skyline Foundation, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and the SJMA Director's Council and Council of 100; and with significant endowment support from the William Randolph Hearst Foundation and the San José Museum of Art Endowment Fund established by the Knight Foundation at the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.

     

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