KNMA’s ever expanding cultural repertoire brings alive exhibitions with dance
New Delhi: In line with the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art’s expanding focus on culture, come and experience the current exhibitions ‘K Ramanujam: Into The Moonlight Parade’ and Atul Dodiya: Walking With The Waves’ as they meld with Saraikella Chhau dance. Led by Padma Shri Guru Shashadhar Acharya with disciples Gunjan Josh and Shubham Acharya, they will perform the pieces ‘RATRI’ & ‘NAAVIK’.
Seraikela Chhau is a masked dance from the state of Jharkhand. This dance form is from the Singhbhum region which is a part of Seraikela. The focal point of this form are the clay masks that are created for it. It is truly an amalgamation of art and culture.
When: 23 July 2022, Saturday I 6.30 pm onwards
Where: KNMA Saket
For more information visit www.KNMA.in
The exhibition ‘K Ramanujam: Into the Moonlight Parade…’ provides the audience a unique opportunity to view rare drawings and paintings of the artist including his awe-inspiring 13-feet panorama ‘My Dream World’ (1973). K Ramanujam’s mythopoetic universe appears to be an impenetrable fortress dimly lit by a solitary crescent; a nocturnal world guarded by “an army of muses” to use the artist’s own expression.
These works often portray Ramanujam himself proudly sporting a cowboy hat and English moustache, cheerfully drifting or lounging in the company of nymphs and sea monsters. But in reality, Ramanujam’s quest for love and companionship, not to mention social dignity and financial security, went in vain, forcing him to take his own life in 1973, when the artist was just 33 years old.
With a curatorial conviction of bringing forth, un-sung aspects of a creative soul who left without much applause, a selection of works in a variety of mediums, such as ink and gouache on paper, unconventionally rendered by the artist, will constitute the display.
‘Atul Dodiya: Walking with the Waves’ an exhibition with recent works of Atul Dodiya generated from the current pandemic will open parallel to K Ramanujam’s show at KNMA, Saket.
An attentive selection from almost 270 works from the series, the exhibition will introspect on the idea of this ‘space of innocence and freedom‘ as Dodiya puts it. The waves of turmoil and the waves of change are perhaps the only perpetuity of human existence and the world around that these works inform.
The two exhibitions together will reveal intricacies and profundities that solitary creative minds can reach and bring out for the onlooker, by touching upon unforeseen emotions and sensibilities that can only arise from a period of great crisis and a subsequent respire brought in through healing.