New Configurations Exhibit, Kiran Nadar Museum Of Art

Death, redemption, drama and a contemporary revisiting of the epic tales in Indian folklore, the current exhibition - New Configurations at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art is an impressive and sobering conversation with seminal works from some of the country’s greatest artists. Mapping movements, times and conversations, curator and director of KNMA Roobina Karode takes her audience on a journey of opportunity—encouraging fresh perspectives and new insights, and using the vast historical context of India’s best-known artists to reflect on India’s creative diversity.  The show also examines the internal practices of a museum space in contemporary India, and aims to look at the relationships between the art object and the exhibition space. Curated from Kiran Nadar Museum of Art’s permanent collection of over 4,300 pieces the show is a snapshot of not just Indian art, but also Indian history, from late 19th-century miniatures, and from rare works by Raja Ravi Varma to internationally renowned artists such as Anish Kapoor and Raqib Shaw. Also on display are Krishen Khanna’s incredible Pieta (1988) juxtaposed against A Ramachandran’s gristly Anatomy Lesson, (1971), and works by Ram Kumar, made at a time when Ramachandran’s reputation as a social commentator was at its peak. The exhibition also features works by some of India’s most significant female artists including Meera Mukherjee, Arpita Singh, Nilima Shiekh and Aisha Khalid.

India’s first private museum Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, energises the corporate setting of HCL’s sprawling campus building and Noida headquarters with a dynamic exhibition of modern and contemporary Indian masters.New Configurations is one of the first exhibitions at KNMA which illuminates the inner workings of a museum and the dynamics of building a collection. Curatorially the exhibition is designed to illustrate the ongoing process of evolving a museum’s repository of works, presenting viewers with occasions for both planned and chance encounters with artists, histories and artworks.

New Configurations runs at Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Noida, till August 31