Experiments with Truth: Gandhi and Images of Nonviolence

by Josef Helfenstein (Editor), Joseph Newland (Editor), Vinay Lal (Contributor)

This fascinating book introduces and explores the resonance of Gandhi’s (1869–1948) ethics of nonviolence in the visual arts. Taking the form of a reader, the texts range across influences on Gandhian philosophy and outgrowths from it. The accompanying images include Gandhi’s own iconography, photojournalism of related social movements and nonviolent struggles, artworks speaking to violence or issuing from an inner space of peace, and portraits of the Mahatma’s forebears and followers. Experiments with Truth counterpoints art and religious art of the past, paintings and sculpture from the mid-20th century on, contemporary installations, newly written historical summaries and thematic explorations, reprints of texts by famous peacemakers, and passages in religious texts that inspired Gandhi. 

Distributed for The Menil Collection

Exhibition The Menil Collection
(10/02/14–02/01/15) International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum
(04/14/15–01/03/16)

352 pages, Hardcover

First published December 23, 2014