Victoria Memorial Hall, DAG Museums to host online exhibition on works of 3 Tagore siblings
Kolkata: Victoria Memorial Hall (VMH), Kolkata, has collaborated with DAG Museums to host an online exhibition featuring the works of three siblings of the Tagore family — Abanindranath Tagore, Gaganendranath Tagore and Sunayani Devi.
"Our focus in the exhibition titled 'An Inheritance of Imaginations' is the power of stories and story-telling that these artists realised in their own time. The artists retold stories that they inherited from cultural traditions stretching across Asia, which, in turn, became a shared legacy for subsequent generations who grew up with this wealth of images and words," said Jayanta Sengupta, Secretary and Curator, VMH.
The exhibition will not be a standalone event but there will be talks and workshops around it, which will sustain public interest in the online exhibition, such as a discussion between art historians. There will be an online performance in collaboration with ThinkArts, encouraging children to reimagine stories retold by these artists in their own ways.
It is the first time when a large collection of works by Sunayani Devi will be in the public domain. "As one of the first women to get recognition as an artist, her work definitely deserves more attention and exposure," said Sengupta.
"The museum experience may not be replicable online, however, digital exhibitions also open up new exciting possibilities — such as easier collaboration between institutions or enabling diverse audiences across the world to engage with art in more participatory ways. This presents possibilities for audience engagement and community building that can be explored even after the pandemic," said Sumona Chakravarty, Deputy Director, Ghare Baire, DAG Museums.
It is an initiative by DAG, which focuses on building a shared legacy of art by making it accessible by establishing museums and museum-exhibitions. Ghare Baire - The World, The Home and Beyond: 18th-20th Century Art in Bengal is DAG's third such venture after Drishyakala Art Museum at the Red Fort in Delhi and Eternal Banaras in Varanasi.
The exhibition that kicks off on August 7, the birth anniversary of Abanindranath Tagore, and its duration will be till September 4.
