The Kiran Nadar Museum of Art Presents Two Exhibitions for the Spring Reopening The Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) is delighted to announce the reopening of the museum to visitors after a yearlong pause on holding onsite exhibitions, affected by the worldwide pandemic situation. (1888PressRelease) April 09, 2022 - K RAMANUJAM: INTO THE MOONLIGHT PARADE…& ATUL DODIYA: WALKING WITH THE WAVES At KNMA, Saket 145, DLF, South Court Mall, Saket The Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) is delighted to announce the reopening of the museum to visitors after a yearlong pause on holding onsite exhibitions, affected by the worldwide pandemic situation. 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 RoobinaKarode (Chief Curator and Director, KNMA) wishes to bring forthrecreations 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. Paying homage to K Ramanujam, an exceptional figure of Indian modernism, 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. Perhaps the most enigmatic and underrepresented figure from Indian modernism, the late Tamil artist was a member of the largest artist’s commune in India – the Cholamandal Artists’ Village founded in 1966 by painter-pedagogue KCS Panicker. Despite proving himself to be a draughtsman and colourist of exceptional calibre from the time he was a student of Panicker, Ramanujam found it difficult to find a world sensitive to his congenital anomalies and alleged schizophrenia, which often made him choose the life of an outcast.Born with a speech impediment into a conservative Tamil Brahmin/Iyengar family and a middle school dropout, young Ramanujam sought solace in reading Chandamama (‘Uncle Moon’), a South Indian children’s magazine renowned for its ‘Puranic’ stories and intricate illustrations. As an adult, driven away by relatives and with nowhere to go, the penniless art student used to sleep on the pavement surrounded by Tamil cinema posters and gigantic hoardings, and frequented film shooting locations in Chennai’s Kodambakkam by showing special interest in the spectacular set work of musical and mythological dramas. Further enriched by a unique Vaishnavite symbolism and the Bhakti poetic tradition of Tamil Alwars, that Ramanujam must have been introduced to when he was a kid. All these experiences took sublime forms in drawings and paintings, but in a scale and proportion that w