Curated by Raffael Dedo Gadebusch at KNMA, Saket
KNMA is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition Eckart Muthesius and Manik Bagh – Pioneering Modernism in India, curated by Raffael Dedo Gadebusch, who is the head of the Museum für Asiatische Kunst, Berlin.
The “Museum für Asiatische Kunst Berlin” (Asian Art Museum Berlin), as an institution of the The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (SPK), has worked collaboratively with its international partners, the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) and German Embassy New Delhi to realize this exhibition in India. This exhibition is seen as the beginning of a long-term partnership between the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in New Delhi and the Asian Art Museum in Berlin (Museum für Asiatische Kunst), with both institutions contributing to the field of modern and contemporary art, with a
particular emphasis on India and its neighboring nations.
The exhibition, held in honour of architect Eckart Muthesius’ 120th birth year, relates the intriguing tale of a productive conversation about design and architecture that took place in the early 1930s between Germany and India.
The main characters in this narrative are Berlin’s architect Eckart Muthesius (1904-1989) and Indore’s Maharaja Yeshwant Rao Holkar II (1908-1961), who had first met in Oxford at the end of the 1920s. The Maharaja appointed Muthesius shortly afterward to create a mansion for him and his spouse. This was to be distinctly different from the English colonial-style designs that were already in place. Literally translated as the “jewel garden,” Manik Bagh was India’s first iconic modernist edifice, having been commissioned by Yeshwant Rao Holkar and completed by Muthesius in 1933. The palace personified the new democratic architecture’s holistic principles. Eckart Muthesius, designed the interiors of the palace with puristically elegant and highly innovative, masterpieces of contemporary design and significant artwork, including the three versions of the sculpture “Bird in Space” that the Maharaja commissioned from Constantin Brancusi. Manik Bagh is a symbol of the early days of international modernism and an architectural synthesis unlike any other building in Asia.
A selection of rare old photographs by Man Ray, Emil Leitner, and Eckart Muthesius will be on display in the exhibition along with watercolors, sketches, and design studies by Muthesius, which will unfold the curatorial objective.
Exhibition Details:
Open to public: 15th October 2024 – 8th December 2024
Venue: KNMA, Saket
Timing: 10:30 A.M – 6:30 P.M
The museum is closed on Monday and all public holidays
Admission to exhibitions is free
