City Pulse

National Gallery of Modern Art, Bengaluru, Ministry of Culture, Government of India in collaboration with Akar Prakar, a contemporary Art Gallery based in Kolkata, is proud to present  a prestigious exhibition titled ‘Mapping with Figures’: The Evolving Art of K. S. Radhakrishnan curated by renowned art historian R. Siva Kumar. It is being thrown open to artists, art lovers and the general public at large. 

The exhibition will explore the trajectory of K.S Radhakrishnan’s work from the late 1990s to the present through a selection of about 50 works representing the entire gamut of his oeuvre in kind and scale. Mr. Radhakrishnan is a renowned contemporary sculptor, literated from Viswa Bharati University Santiniketan, who, with his sensual bronze sculptures, imprints on the world of art as a modernist. Through a myriad of shows, his art has encompassed varied cities both in India and other countries.

Excerpts from the Curator’s Note – by R. Siva Kumar

Radhakrishnan's career began with an aesthetic schism. As a student he had, on the one hand, a teacher like Sarbari Roy Choudhury — who himself belonged to the figurative mode of early modernist sculpture as a portraitist and to its subsequent phase of fragmentation as figural sculptor — and an exemplar like Ramkinkar whose large outdoor sculptures stood out as examples of a more triumphant earlier moment in figural sculptural expression.

One of the elements that make him stand apart is his conscious adoption of a sculptural idiom shaped by modeling and bronze casting at a time when they were being sidelined, and successfully working them back into mainstream sculpture almost singlehandedly. His work today combines aspects of object materiality of the medium with figural sensuousness and narrative nuances. 

Radhakrishnan is a sculptor in evolution, so this exhibition is more in the nature of a mid-career stocktaking rather than a retrospective assessment. But given the body of work he has already produced and their consistency an attempt to trace his trajectory so far should be in place.

K.S. Radhakrishnan is one of the most notable among the new generation of sculptors who has successfully brought about a definitive resurgence in Indian sculpture. Born in 1956 in Kerala, he did his BFA and MFA in Sculpture from Viswa Bharati University, Santiniketan. He lives and works in Delhi. 

The exhibition will be on view for public from November 23 to December 27, 2015, every day from 10 am – 5 pm, (except on Mondays and National holidays).

Author: Neeti Mallick

Neeti grew up in London with a strong interest in Art and Culture. In over ten years at Osian\'s, the pioneering private Arts & Cultural institution in India, she worked in the Auction house and was involved in countless Art & Cultural events. She has had a unique perspective of the Indian Art Market interacting with numerous artists, professionals, and high net worth individuals. She has also done a course at Sotheby’s on Art and its Global Markets, in 2014. Now with Art Aspects Asia, she offers Art Advisory and Education services, including courses on Art Appreciation, building and managing new Art portfolio’s for Individuals and Companies, Curating Art Exhibitions, Designing Art merchandise and counseling for careers in the Art world.