LOOK: India gets its first contemporary sculpture park

By: Jen Balboa - 7 years ago

Left: Woven Mirror” (2012); right: “Peace” (2015), both by Prashant Pandey. Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Maskara, Mumbai. Image: courtesy of Dhruv Malhotra via AFP Relaxnews

Madhavendra Palace, within Nahargarh Fort in Jaipur, Rajasthan, in northern India, is now home to a sculpture park — the first of its kind in the country.

This magnificent palace, built at the end of the 19th century and located within an 18th-century fort in the hills surrounding Jaipur, has been turned into a gallery for sculptures. The Sculpture Park at Madhavendra Palace opened Dec. 10 with a collection of works by 24 artists, including 15 Indian artists.

Left: “Phillips and James” (The House Crystal)(1987-2007); right: “Vow of Poverty” both by James Brown. Courtesy of the artist and Livingstone Gallery, The Hague. Image: courtesy of Dhruv Malhotra via AFP Relaxnews

Curator Peter Nagy, director of Gallery Nature Morte in New Delhi, said: “For most of my career as a gallerist and curator, I have been trying to break away from the whitebox exhibition space. With this project, I am able to indulge my passions for art, architecture and décor, into a marvelous synthesis of the past and present.”

“Arrested image of a dream” by Thukral & Tagra, and “choleric, phlegmatic, melancholy, sanguine” by Bharti Kher, courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth, London and Nature Morte, New Delhi. Image: courtesy, Dhruv Malhotra via AFP Relaxnews

The exhibition, which runs until November 2018, is the result of a collaboration between the Rajasthan government and the Saat Saath Arts Foundation, a non-profit organization seeking to support international exchange between India and the rest of the world through the visual arts and education.

The Sculpture Park at Madhavendra Palace’s inaugural exhibition runs until November 2018 at the Nahargarh Fort, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India. JB