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Journalism of Courage
MUSUI and Maiya are weightless. Balanced on a cylindrical mass of green-hued bronze, their elongated torso and lanky limbs are suspended in air. Mouths pursed in a half-smile, meditative eyes—the body in its entirety articulates inner joy.
This tribal couple has evolved in sculptor KS Radhakrishnan’s mind over 30 years, ever since he met Musui in a village near Shantiniketan, where he was a student. The chiselled face of Musui, a young man from the Santhal tribe who posed for him, stayed with the Kerala-born artist. Along the way, Radhakrishnan created Maiya as Musui’s female alter ego.
The duo has been the sculptor’s muse and creative agents since he left Shantiniketan. For critics, their growth has become the benchmark for Radhakrishnan’s own artistic journey. ‘‘I don’t like digging many small holes. I dig at the same place, the well isn’t deep enough yet,’’ says the artist, walking through 13 of his latest works from a series called Freehold, on display at Mumbai’s Museum Gallery.
Radhakrishnan is a curious figure in contemporary art. Patronage and space have eluded Indian sculptors through the ages and some of them, like GV Santosh, have switched to painting. Those who have resisted the two-dimensional canvas have embraced new idioms like installation and neo sculpture that get just enough attention in the increasingly experimental art scene.
Radhakrishnan is one of the few who have been dogged about the medium—modernising it in scale and size for takers at home and abroad. He’s one of the last exponents of the Shantiniketan aesthetic of nimble, sensuous forms pioneered by Sarbari Roy Choudhury and Ramkinkar Baij.
‘‘There’s been a definite resurgence in sculpture. It has nothing to do with the art market boom. Paintings can never replace sculpture in auctions. But art is more and more a part of public spaces, there’s a value attached to utilitarian spaces where art is displayed,’’ says Radhakrishnan, who considers Mumbai the most informed art market.
His last big solo show was at the city’s Tao Art Gallery soon after he showed his most enduring series, Song of the Road, based on the theme of rickshaw pullers on the streets of Kolkata. As in this show, his engagement with the ordinary and oppressed in Song of the Road was apolitical. Just as Musui and Maiya transcend their tribal context to being a celebration of simple human joy, Radhakrishnan’s toiling rickshaw puller revelled in his enterprise and labour. So did Maiya as Mona Lisa, which brought him laurels in Europe. ‘‘Gimmicky political messages are not difficult to pull off, what gets me is not what I want to say, but what I end up saying having gone through the process of creating. The fluidity and peace that’s on their faces are not predetermined,’’ explains Radhakrishnan.
Born in Kottayam, his first artistic influence was his uncle who was a painter. It was the early ’70s and Shantiniketan was the mecca of artistic freedom. New ideas and languages were being shaped on the campus, with unlimited freedom of artistic expression. Later he set up his studio at Chattarpur Pahari, on the outskirts of Delhi. With imposing doorways and thick walls, it’s almost a fortress, but inside, it opens out to the sky, with branches of the saptaparni tree arching over. Here, Musui and Maiya are born in new avatars, their half-smiles conveying something different each time.
(Freehold at Museum Art Gallery, Mumbai, till February 8. At Art Alive, New Delhi, from February 9 to 28)
