WALKING WITH THE WAVES OF ATUL DODIYA INTO THE MOONLIGHT PARADE OF K. RAMANUJAM AT KNMA

Welcoming viewers back to the physical space with two-person solo at KNMA

Opening up her museum to visitors after a yearlong pause on holding onsite exhibitions Kiran Nadar, the Founder Director of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) and the trustee of the HCL Technologies, accompanied by Roobina Karode, Chief Curator and Director, KNMA were two happy ladies with big smiles and good news to spread. “We are so glad that it is finally safe to come back to the physicality of a space to view art,” says Mrs Nadar in her welcome speech. The milling crowd of art lovers, gallery owners, artists, collectors and heads of other arts NGOs that marked the museum, confirmed that Nadar was not alone in that assumption.

The days are turning brighter with the spirit of restoration and springing back to normal courses of life, the two exhibitions ‘K Ramanujam: Into the Moonlight Parade…’ and ‘Atul Dodiya: Walking with the Waves’ curated by Roobina Karode (Chief Curator and Director, KNMA) brings forth recreations through an array of visual stimuli. Two artists are spaced by distinct junctures in Indian art, and yet connected through underlying chords of hope and resilience. “We had the new offices ready with more space and sunlight, thanks to Martand Khosla’s designing skills. We had it ready in time for the opening of the Art Fair in January, 2022, but it got postponed due to the Pandemic. However, we’ve emerged back again ready with a line up of exhibitions, this being our first,” says Nadar who was also busy inaugurating the new site of her new museum space which is currently her ‘secret project’. She and her team are also working toward the upcoming retrospective of S H Raza at a new wing in Bikaner House.

“Atul’s work is intimate, delicate, tender and private since he created it in the sequestered corners of his home and we have set out the exhibition to manifest those interesting pathways that take you through the work,” says Karode. “I however urge viewers to no way compare the two artists, since they are very different as artists and as people but both of them took my curation back to the human figure, to address life on earth and the case of Atul to address the anxiety of Pandemic. Ramanujam passed away in 1973, since he was disillusioned with the world. In many ways Atul’s work is about healing those wounds. His work speaks of the need for empathy in this world. I would urge you all to see both with compassion,” said Karode while thanking Mrs Nadar the KNMA trust and her team. “Working together, one feels so loved in this space and one has the involvement of all,” adds Karode.

Atul Dodiya tells us about his experience during the lockdown, “I started working at home, during the lockdown, I decided to work on a small scale, since it was not possible to work in the studio. However, I didn’t do it with an agenda of showing the work. It was really a therapy,” says Dodiya, who made 350 drawings of which the KNMA is showing 130 works. “I made a work dedicated to St Francis of Assisi because I felt strength coming from his character, I also don’t know how and why but the sea became part of my consciousness,” says Dodiya who called the section of work Walking with the Waves.

The orange and russet clouds shifting shapes and the vegetation altering its disposition with the seasons all fed into his work; including the struggling human figure crawling along the shore, in some instances engaged in meditation and in some labouring with heavy packages or working on boats.

In the other half of this exhibition, one engages with the mythopoetic universe of K Ramanujam, an impenetrable citadel of a nocturnal world guarded by ‘an army of muses,’ to quote from an existing artist text. Ramanujam received much encouragement from KCS Panikar at the Government School of Arts and Crafts and later at the Cholamandal Artist Village (Chennai Tamil Nadu) but he is said to have lived as an outsider because of his alleged schizophrenia and speech impediment.
“I would say that Ramanujam was not valued during his time, like many artists we have highlighted who are now getting their due—be it Nasreen Mohamedi or Himmat Shah. I was lucky to have collected some of his important work and we are so glad that we are getting to show it now, in the right context,” says Mrs Nadar.

From a typical conservative Iyengar family Ramanujam was a dropout who ‘brought himself up’, turning to Chandamama Magazines, (Uncle Moon) for literacy, sleeping on pavements under Tamil cinema posters and sneaking onto film sets in Kodambakkam. He began working on popular masks (Drishti Bommai) and unique rendering of apsara-like figures made in affordable Sulekha Ink before he created the majority of his artistic renderings that involved demigods with peering eyes, ceremonial vehicles and other architectural idioms.

“Ramanujam’s art retells the lesser-spoken stories from Indian art history, and introduces the younger generation to the brilliance of an artistic voice that was unusual and perhaps ahead of his time,” concludes Karode.