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.

Divya Mehra’s (b. 1981, Winnipeg) work has been exhibited, screened, and commissioned by Frieze Sculpture, Los Angeles; Creative Time, New York; MoMA PS1, New York; Queens Museum of Art, New York; MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA; CCA Wattis Institute, San Francisco; Nuit Blanche, Toronto; and the Embassy of Canada in Washington, D.C. She has been featured in publications such as the New York Times, Times of India, ArtAsiaPacific, Hyperallergic, the Globe and Mail, and the Washington Post. Mehra’s work is in numerous public collections, including the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Global Affairs Canada; and the MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina. She is the recipient of the 2022 Sobey Art Award. Mehra lives and works in Seattle.

Night Gallery was founded in 2010 by Davida Nemeroff in Los Angeles’ Lincoln Heights neighborhood. Night Gallery quickly became a prominent platform for emerging artists through its unique late-night openings from 10pm to 2am, which gave the gallery its name. In 2013, the gallery relocated to a larger space near Downtown Los Angeles’s Arts District, and further expanded in January 2022 with the opening of Night Gallery North, a 14,000-square foot venue dedicated to ambitious programming across disciplines. In 2024, Nemeroff launched Sidecar, a collaborative space within Night Gallery’s expanded location, offering curators and galleries the chance to mount exhibitions and showcase work that might otherwise go unseen.