DIVYA MEHRA
Basel Social Club
June 15 — 22, 2025
Night Gallery is pleased to present work by Divya Mehra at the 2025 edition of Basel Social Club from June 15–22. The opening reception will take place on June 15, from 2pm to midnight.
Divya Mehra is recognized for her signature use of critical humor to examine the complex realities of displacement, loss, and oppression. These explorations take form in a variety of media, including sculpture, print, drawing, artist books, installation, advertising, performance, video, and film. The three pieces Night Gallery will present at Basel Social Club are Without You I’m Nothing (Eating the Other), pink, 2025; Modernity at Large (othering the Other), 2015-ongoing; and Your Wish is Your Command, 2023.
Modernity at Large (othering the Other) draws from decades of Mehra's pedagogical and administrative experiences within predominantly white institutions. She initiated this infinite-edition work in 2015; in this iteration, a glass jar contains Valentine's Day candies imprinted with “ENJOY DIVERSITY.” It’s part of an ongoing series in which Mehra mimics and mocks the effortless consumption of the concept of diversity. Mehra draws from Sara Ahmed’s book On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life, in which Ahmed describes how liberal diversity rhetoric is “celebrated, consumed, and eaten.” As the term “diversity” has become overused both within art institutions and in commercial culture more broadly, its meaning has been hollowed out, much like the calories of candy hearts.
Alongside this work, Mehra presents Without You I’m Nothing (Eating the Other), pink. Mehra’s neon sign commands viewers to “ENJOY DIVERSITY,” but through this work’s title, the artist suggests that while “diversity” may gesture towards inclusivity, it in fact consumes the very individuals it attempts to support. For over a decade, Mehra has been examining how these contradictions play out in culture work and cultural production.
Another prominent theme in Mehra’s work is her examination of colonialism’s legacies and its ongoing disenfranchisement of marginalized communities. Also exhibited at Basel Social Club is Your Wish is Your Command (2023), a colossal, smoking magic lamp. In this piece, Mehra offers a comical yet poignant reminder: colonial structures will continue to uplift some at the expense of others, with or without the assistance of supernatural powers.