The Hindu : New Delhi News : Treat for sculpture lovers

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Feb 14, 2006

New Delhi

New Delhi

Treat for sculpture lovers

Madhur Tankha

A bronze sculpture by K.S. Radhakrishnan.

NEW DELHI: Sculpture lovers have a treat in store for them at a two-week-long solo show of bronze sculptures by eminent sculptor K.S. Radhakrishnan opening at Art Alive in Panchsheel Park here this Tuesday.

A sculptor engaged with the human figure for over 25 years, Radhakrishnan has been exploring every aspect of the human body in all its infinite possibilities of stillness, poise and movement. Relentlessly his images defy the rules of gravity and also the heavy matter that is bronze.

The sculptor will be displaying 11 figures of Musui and Maiya, who are free spirits as they spin and gyrate, stand on their heads and hands, walk, run, dance and turn cartwheels. As feats of technology -- in terms of balancing -- the achievement of these figures cast in bronze has pioneered new dimensions in the medium.

Musui is the original archetype of man, modelled after the Santhal boy who was Radhakrishnan's first model at the art college in Santiniketan. On the other hand, Maiya was conceived much later in the 1990s as his companion and consort. She is the muse providing the momentum for explorations into space and time. In her features and exaggerated limbs she reminds one of the dancer from Mohenjodaro.

Together they are primal man and woman, possessed of innocence. Yet they possess the capacity to transform into different models from myth and history. Musui can become a Brahmin and transpose into Mullah Nasiruddin and transform himself into the devil. Their attenuated limbs and gestures possess an emotive equality that lends them a distinctive character.

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