Mumbai:
The
inclusion of the Madras Art Movement in the national discourse has remained
strangely neglected, even though it carved out a space within the region with
its vision, innovation, creativity and techniques. With Madras Modern,DAG fills this large gap, and introduces the
movement’s reformed aesthetic vision—the regional modern, a parallel stream of
modernism which developed and held its own against the existing benchmarks of
modernism as, for example, that of the Bombay Progressives.
It is ironical that modernism
was late coming to Madras (now Chennai) even though the Madras School of Arts
and Crafts is the oldest such colonial institution in India. Established in
1850, the art school abjured the teaching of art to pursue, instead, carpentry,
masonry, metal ware and other crafts-related curricula which became its raison
d’etre. Post-independence, its first Indian principal, D P Roy Chowdhury,
initiated a rigorous course in art practice, but it was his student, K C S
Paniker, who experimented with and pursued modernism—both as an artist and as a
teacher.
Paniker’s contribution as
teacher, avant-garde artist, visionary and theorist was seminal. He was driven
by the need to give art from the region not just an indigenist but a
regionalist rooting in its tradition and heritage. The Madras Art Movement,
therefore, went on to create a ‘regional modern’, embedding it with a unique
identity and visual language.
Within the
Madras Art Movement, it is possible to draw out two broad streams within which
artists visualised their creative temper—the ‘figurative’ and the ‘abstract’.
Since experiments in abstraction were making significant progress elsewhere, it
was fitting that the leading artists of the south—Paniker, L Munuswamy, K V
Haridasan, V Viswanadhan, K M Adimoolam, P Gopinath, AchuthanKudallur,
JayapalPanicker, Akkitham Narayanan, Rm Palaniappan—should explore the genre.
But the human figure was a dominant motif for an equally large number of
artists, the senior-most among whom were J Sultan Ali, K Sreenivasulu, M Reddeppa
Naidu, A P Santhanaraj, Anthony Doss, Alphonso Doss, S G Vasudev, R B
Bhaskaran, K Ramanujam, M Senathipathi,
K Muralidharan, C Douglas, P Perumal, Venkatapathy D, AP
Paneerselvam and S K Rajvelu.
Ashish Anand, MD & CEO, DAG, said ‘The artists of the Madras Art Movement are known for their
affinity to a regional modernism and identity borne of the history, sacred
iconography, architecture, mythology and murals of the region. This first
national-level retrospective is a grand celebration of extremely important
artists with an impressive body of work. They need to be better known not only
in India but also internationally since they represent a certain synthesis of
ideas that form a critical discourse in India’s art history.’
Madras Modern is an important exhibition that
examines this regional modernism outside its own geography. Curated by Dr
Ashrafi S Bhagat, the exhibition draws our attention to the movement’s search
for a language of modernity that was rooted in the region and not dependent on
others in India or around the world. The exhibition is accompanied by a book
that documents its origin and history, illustrated by paintings, sculptures and
archival photographs that record the seminal history of the art and artists of
the Madras Art Movement.
ABOUT
DAG
DAG (formerly known as the Delhi Art
Gallery) was established in 1993 in New Delhi, and over the past 25 years, has
built a reputation for the quality of its collection that represents the
expanse of Indian art practice. This extensive collection charts a historic
continuum, from the early works of academic artists trained in Bengal and
Bombay, to modernists from Baroda, Delhi and beyond, and includes artworks by
some of India’s most celebrated artists, including Raja Ravi Varma, Amrita
Sher-Gil, Jamini Roy, S. H. Raza, M. F. Husain, Tyeb Mehta, F. N. Souza,
Avinash Chandra and Chittaprosad. With the aim of taking Indian modernism to a
wider audience, DAG now has gallery spaces in the historic Kala Ghoda in
Mumbai, and the iconic Fuller Building in Manhattan, New York, in addition to
its gallery in Delhi. It regularly participates in international fairs such as
Art Basel Hong Kong, Armory New York, Art Dubai, Masterpiece London and India
Art Fair.
The mandate of taking art to the
people has led to museum quality exhibition collaborations with stellar art
institutions such as the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai, Dr. Bhau Daji
Lad Museum, Mumbai, The Nehru Memorial Museum & Library, New Delhi, the
Punjab Lalit Kala Akademi, Chandigarh and the Jawahar Kala Kendra, Jaipur. The
most recent and monumental collaboration has been with the Archaeological
Survey of India—with the Drishyakala
museum at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Red Fort being inaugurated by
India’s Prime Minister on 23 January 2019.
With the democratization of Indian
art as its core aim, DAG consistently hosts outreach programmes for students of
schools and colleges, and also runs a pioneering programme for the visually
impaired by allowing them to experience art through tactile aids.
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