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Item: Santhal Family

1938

Sculpture
Materials:

The Santhal Family made by the artist Ramkinkar Baij in 1938, is the first modernist public sculpture in India. Its sheer physical presence on the campus in Bengal where it stands, its combination of ancient and modern, Eastern and Western aesthetics and its subject matter of migrant tribal labour give it a unique place in Indian art history. It produces a narrative about art and society that reaches well beyond the works immediate context and opens up a discursive sphere in which questions such as the ethics of representation, the politics of gesture, the location of modernism and a desire for world culture are played out.

Ensembles

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SANTHAL FAMILY
M HKA acquired the SANTHAL FAMILY ensemble on the occasion of the exhibition Santhal Family: Positions Around an Indian Sculpture in 2008. W

Actors

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Ramkinkar Baij
Ramkinkar Baij, known as the father of modern Indian sculpture, trained and later taught at Rabindranath Tagore’s university in Santiniketan,

Linked Items

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Untitled
Matti Braun, Untitled, 2008. Installation, sand from santiniketan, variable dimensions.

About M HKA / Mission Statement

The M HKA is a museum for contemporary art, film and visual culture in its widest sense. It is an open place of encounter for art, artists and the public. The M HKA aspires to play a leading role in Flanders and to extend its international profile by building upon Antwerp's avant-garde tradition. The M HKA bridges the relationship between artistic questions and wider societal issues, between the international and the regional, artists and public, tradition and innovation, reflection and presentation. Central here is the museum's collection with its ongoing acquisitions, as well as related areas of management and research.

About M HKA Ensembles

The M HKA Ensembles represent our first steps towards initiating the public to today's art-related digital landscape. With the help of these new media, our aim is to offer our artworks a better and fuller array of support for their presentation and public understanding.