KOCHI: The US-settled Rahul Ramachandran, son of the late artist A Ramachandran, was in Kochi to take part in the inauguration of Dhyana Chitra: A Ramachandran Visual Cultural Lab, a research centre in the name of the eminent artist. Rahul, a senior scientist with NASA, spoke to TNIE on the project.
Excerpts
Q: Can you elaborate on the initiative?
This is one of the initiatives. The big one is the museum project. We want an international quality museum in Kerala. This is his library, the resources that we use, which will be made available to the artist's community here. It will serve as an intellectual resource. It was an intellectual nourishment for him, which helped him develop the visual language, looking at the art books from different parts of the world.
Q: Why in Kochi? Your dad spent most of his years in Delhi and Santiniketan...
Fundamentally, Kochi is the city that shaped him, in a lot of ways. Kerala has inspired him, both in terms of the size of the work he did and in shaping him as a human being, more than anything else. He was never a Delhi person, and he has certain values that he stuck to all the way through. Kerala and Santiniketan are two places that shaped him.
Q: How big is the collection, both art and books?
There are 4,000 books, and there are a lot of digital resources that we have collected during this period. There are basically three large book shelves. In the first phase, two of them were donated. His select awards, some examples of him studying the Kerala murals. We have a sketch. A lot of them are lost. I think that’s part of his sadness, that we are losing some old traditions.
My mother (artist Tan Yuan Chameli) still uses some of the library, which are part of the other shelves. After her, we will pass them to the library. The art collection he curated himself... the main artworks throughout his career. It actually captures his progression as an artist over the years. The last collection was a body of paintings, a lot of drawings, sculptures... all that is going to Kollam. That’s in the second phase.
Q: Have you kept anything for yourself from his collection, something special?
No, no. Our only concern was that India doesn’t have a museum culture. And there are expensive works. The joke is that it’s our inheritance, and it’s gone, right? But we want the works to be preserved properly, displayed properly, equivalent to the value they have in the market.
That’s why we want to make sure that the museum is international quality. We have given a proposal to the Kerala government that, on our behalf, we will give additional money to ensure that the museum is at a certain level. They said you can add more, to make it a certain level. In that way, it will be the flagship museum in India.
CM Pinarayi Vijayan inaugurates A Ramachandran visual cultural lab at Durbar Hall
KOCHI: Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Sunday opined that art was being used for hate propaganda. “Artworks are very relevant in contemporary times when they are being used for hate propaganda. Art which was inaccessible to the common people traditionally should be made simple and accessible for them. I hope through this initiative of the Lalithakala Akademi, we will be able to pass on to the masses the vision of art put forth by artists like A Ramachandran which is based on humanism and environmental equilibrium,” the CM said.
He was inaugurating the Dhyana Chitra: A Ramachandran Visual Cultural Lab at the Kerala Lalithakala Akademi’s Durbar Hall art centre in Kochi.
A library housing 4,000 books from Ramachandran’s exclusive collection on art and several valuable items, including the awards he received, are part of the centre.
“The family has also agreed to hand over the paintings and sculptures by the artist to the state government and they will be displayed at the museum being set up in Kollam, part of the Sree Narayana Guru Cultural Complex. The museum under construction will house paintings and sculptures of Ramachandran valued at around Rs 300 crore,” said Minister for Cultural Affairs Saji Cherian.
Minister for Industries and Law P Rajeeve, MP Hibi Eden, MLA T J Vinod, Mayor M Anilkumar, former Minister M A Baby, Ramachandran’s children Rahul and Sujata, Kerala Lalithakala Akademi Chairman Murali Cheeroth and Secretary N Balamuralikrishnan attended the event.