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Krishna Reddy’s (1925–2018) career, which spanned over seven decades, was defined by constantly pushing boundaries not only through his artistic practice but also in thought and philosophy. Reddy pursued a lifelong pedagogical approach and most importantly, built friendships that emphasised his influence across generations of artists and thinkers, who were either his teachers, contemporaries or students. Of Friendships: Krishna Reddy & His World, celebrates some of the many lifelong friendships forged. This exhibition presents key rare and early works of Reddy, alongside works of Stanley William Hayter, Zarina, Ramkinkar Baij, Shirley Witebsky, Mona Saudi, Judith Blum Reddy, Benode Behari Mukherjee, Gabor Peterdi and Nalini Malani.
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Krishna Reddy, Demonstrators, 1968
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Krishna Reddy, Maternity, 1955
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Krishna Reddy, Butterfly formation, 1957
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Stanley William Hayter, Impact, 1970
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Shirley Witebsky, Crystal, 1960
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Krishna Reddy, Jellyfish, 1955
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Krishna Reddy, Bull & Man, 1954
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Krishna Reddy, Sunset, 1981
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Krishna Reddy, Three Figures, 1967
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Krishna Reddy, River, 1959
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Krishna Reddy, Untitled (Drawing 72), 1970s-1990s
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The only process I am concerned with is, the significance of living"
— Krishna Reddy
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Reddy began to consider the intaglio plate as 'a piece of sculpture' in its own right. This is true of works that are informed by his close observation of the natural world, harking back to his childhood and youth, as well as of works that address contemporaneous subject matter. The interplay between print and sculpture can be noted in the Demonstrators prints and sculpture (all 1968) made in the aftermath of May 1968. These attest to Reddy's ongoing commitment to the representation of the human figure and the political charge it afforded.
— Stanley William Hayter
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Krishna Reddy among colleagues and students in Santiniketan, c. 1940’s
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Unfettered by language barriers, the clown became a universal symbol of constant innovation and movement, restlessness and temporality, performing the circus of life. Besides the challenge of capturing his character in action, his heroic and tragic acts of endurance sublimated the burden of existence. The Clown resurfaced in Reddy's oeuvre to become a recurrent theme that he went on to engage with for more than twenty-five years. Having watched the circus with his little daughter Apu in the early 1970s, Reddy was primarily drawn to the shifting configurations between form, space and time in the performance of the clown. In Reddy's prints, the clown in movement became a spindly, elongated figure transforming into a network of linear details.
— Roobina Karode
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Steeped in a profound and sensitive understanding of nature, that was instilled in him by his influential teachers Nandalal Bose and Ramkinkar Baij at Rabindranath Tagore’s Santiniketan in the mid 1940’s – Reddy’s process was equally informed by the catastrophic impact of the Bengal famine and Partition on human lives, as well as ancient eastern philosophies imbibed through close association with his erstwhile teacher, J. Krishnamurti. These lived experiences enabled Reddy to be an empathetic and discerning artist, teacher and humanist as he traversed the world over the next decades, always challenging the limits that confronted him in his practice – materially, philosophically and technically. Through his travels Reddy constantly forged deep friendships, first with artists such as Joan Miró and Alberto Giacometti at Stanley William Hayter’s Atelier 17, which was the crucible of artistic creativity in post-war Paris. Thereafter, from 1976, as an intrinsic part of the avant-garde modern art movement in SoHo, New York, Reddy’s loft and studio became a place of refuge, learning, debate and discourse for artists, thinkers and writers until he passed away in 2018.
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Krishna Reddy, To a New Form, 1968
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Krishna Reddy, Untitled (Bengal Famine), 1950
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Krishna Reddy, Untitled (Bengal Famine), 1950
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Krishna Reddy, Untitled (Bengal Famine), 1950
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Zarina, Abyss, 2013
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Krishna Reddy, Untitled (Drawing 115), 1960s-1990s
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Krishna Reddy, Reclining Figure, 1950
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Krishna Reddy, Seated Figure, 1952
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Krishna Reddy, Untitled (Seated Figure), 1951
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Krishna Reddy, Musician, 1953
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Krishna Reddy, Thinking, 1953
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Krishna Reddy, Landscape and figure, 1949
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Judith Blum Reddy, Untitled
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Krishna Reddy, Cityscape, 1950
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Stanley William Hayter, Death by Water, 1948
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Mona Saudi, Untitled, 1980
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Krishna Reddy, Discerning, 1950s
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"There is the higher intuitive level of the human thinking, that to develop an awareness, an openness, to understand to be curious, to learn, I think that’s what dominated my whole life. Like a scientist, an artist is not a logical person. This is vague, I cannot explain to you scientifically, there is no measure, it’s an experience, you dream and then you wake up, everything seems to be very strange..." —
Krishna Reddy
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Reddy was an adept draughtsman with an incredible eye for detail, a formidable sculptor who adapted his knowledge into engraving his metal printing plates, in a way that forever transformed printmaking processes. He converged his diverse strands of knowledge – of sculpture and painting, the delicate alchemy of materials and chemicals and his deep philosophical thinking into the pioneering process that he introduced to the world of art – simultaneous multicolour viscosity printing. “Reading Krishna Reddy’s treatment of the metal printing plate and his material inquiry in relation to his artistic route between differing political, ideological and cultural contexts from Santiniketan to Paris, Ljubljana, and St. Margarethen can then potentially point to the importance of renegotiating the cultural plurality of modernism under the condition of transcultural contact between unexpected locations and protagonists”, continues Wille in her essay.
Anchoring a part of the main gallery is a series of three iconic prints, The Great Clown (Le Grand Clown). By juxtaposing variations of the large print, side by side, the mastery of Reddy’s skill and his handling of materials and inks is immediately evident. Highlighting the hand of the artist through the process, the resulting nuances make each print uniquely different from the other. Adjacently, a series of early prints from the 1950’s and 1960’s establishes Reddy's dexterity in the control of the process, while also revealing his range of thought in their making. For Reddy, the metal plates that formed the matrix for printing, were like sculptures that he engraved upon with a variety of hand and machine tools, controlling their minute depths to fractions of millimetres. A body of such metal plates, made over his long career and rarely seen in public, are on view in the gallery. In another gallery room, one of his early sculptures is surrounded by rare etchings which reveal Reddy’s lifelong pursuit to understand and negotiate with the gestures and movements of the human body through the lens of abstraction. Resonant with the tactile cadence of life force, the etchings underscore Reddy’s intuitive and profound understanding of the world and people around him. Works by other artists and friends, students and teachers such as Stanley William Hayter, Judith Blum Reddy, Zarina, Nalini Malani, Ramkinkar Baij and Shirley Witebsky – all artist exchanges that remained in Krishna’s New York studio – are displayed alongside Reddy’s prints and rare early etchings.
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"To Krishna, I presume his teacher, Nandalal Bose demonstrated the primal concern of art education, namely the discovery of oneself and discovery of the inner forces of nature, to me, Nandalal clarified, through his words and works, the various aspects of an art language and it’s creative roots. No one could have done it better than he did. And that message has stayed with us. And this probably lies at the bottom of Krishna Reddy’s success as an exemplary teacher and motivator."
— K.G. Subramanyan
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Krishna Reddy, Wave, 1963
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Krishna Reddy, Whirlpool, 1962
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Stanley William Hayter, La Vague, 1960
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Nalini Malani, Untitled, 1972
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Krishna Reddy, Untitled (Santineketan), c. 1940s
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Krishna Reddy, Radiating Flowers, 1967
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Ramkinkar Baij, Untitled
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Krishna Reddy, Pastorale, 1958
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Benode Behari Mukherjee, Untitled, 1983
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Shirley Witebsky, Flower and Butterfly, c. 1960
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Krishna Reddy, Plants, 1965
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Krishna Reddy, Seed Pushing, 1961
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Krishna Reddy, Germination, 1963
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Gabor Peterdi, Untitled, 1962
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Krishna Reddy, Untitled (Drawing 75), 1970s-1990s
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"Nature is too profound, its mysteries too many. I get swayed by its constant change of colour, light, form and feel." — Krishna Reddy
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The universal element of water is what forms the basic unit of these images and its structure, movement and flow is materialized on the etching plate, movement can be said to trace dynamic interactions with time as a whirlpool or as circulating water, as opposed to the flow of a river with a beginning and an end.
— Simone Wille
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“Reddy’s works embody in-between states of materiality and form, moving from material to form, and the form then moving to dematerialize, dissolve and perhaps, disperse again into (particles of) matter. The inherent reality of life and death, making and unmaking, manifesting and disappearing, all take on new interpretations in Reddy’s art."
— Roobina Karode
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Marking an early beginning to Reddy’s centenary year, Of Friendships: Krishna Reddy & His World underscores the greatness of his visionary practice, his enduring influence as an artist and a teacher and most importantly, celebrates the spirit of his generosity and love shared through the numerous friendships he nurtured over the years.
Of Friendships: Krishna Reddy & His World
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