“Why do you only create female sculptures?” asked an audience member during artist Ravinder Reddy’s session, In Pursuit of Monumentality. Reddy simply responded, “Because I like them,” and the audience started to laugh.
Decoding the heads
You don’t need an expert to recognise the ‘heads’ Ravinder Reddy creates and it was not surprising that the hall was brimming with people who wanted to understand how the artist worked. “I am terrible at presentations, I don’t usually do this, so forgive me if I make any mistakes,” was Reddy’s disclaimer before the start of his session.
And yes, one of the questions was “Why just create heads?” — referring to the artist’s huge collection of sculptures that deals with only faces. “The face is the most stunning feature of a body,” said the artist whose works, primarily in simple colours of blue, are inspired by folk and tribal artists.
Of the 20 odd works that he showed, most of them were nude sculptures of women and men. But what caught the interest of the audience was one particular nude sculpture of a lady with a garland that was covered in a white cloth. “This was at one of my international exhibitions, when someone objected to the nudity and asked for it to be covered. The sculpture was eventually covered and stayed like that for a few days after which someone took it off.”
Drawing Hyderabad
From the moment Orijit Sen showed a glimpse of the first sketch of the Old City during Ramzan, the audience was rapt.
Orijit’s work is famous across the world. His 75-metre mural at the Virasat-e-Khalsa Museum in Anandpur Sahib, Punjab is where he first recreated the magic of a city filled with historical moments. Here too, with a team of artists he is recreating some of the famous city streets since 2015.
From the haleem making process in the Old City and even sign boards outside shops, everything in his work is detailed.
“During festivals, Old City becomes a different zone, one that allows communities to get together and makes space for the public, as is the case during Ramzan. You tell me, can the roads at Cyberabad be modified to adjust people like this?”
