Aicon Gallery Presents 'Ram Kumar: A Retrospective' 11/23

Aicon Gallery presents 'Ram Kumar: A Retrospective' on Tuesday, 23 November 2010 from 7:00-9:00pm. The even will feature a discussion with Beth Citron, Curatorial Fellow at The Rubin Museum of Art - 'The Contemporary Indian Landscape'

Space is limited, kindly RSVP.

The Aicon Gallery is located at 35 Great Jones St, New York, NY 10012. RSVP at query@aicongallery.com or 1 212 725 6092

Ram Kumar's work, throughout his lifetime, has often been difficult to place within the more simplistic narratives that have developed around modern Indian art. Although Kumar, like a number of Indian and Pakistani artists who studied in Paris in the 1950s, returned from Europe with a semi-figurative style that drew on post-cubism, he eventually chose to abandon the figure entirely and began working almost exclusively with the motifs of the abstract cityscapes and landscapes, a move unique among his immediate contemporaries at the time. By insisting on the abstract, Kumar demands something that most of his contemporaries do not; a private, contemplative viewing experience. Like their counterparts in Western abstract art - the work of Rothko and Hans Hoffman come to mind - these works are less about transcendence and more about the visual encounter between the viewer and the painting in front of them. Thus the evolution in Kumar's work that continues to set him apart from his contemporaries can be understood as the embodiment of a break between depicting something (the individual) to articulating the possible response of that something; between picturing something and being it, if you like.

Born in Simla, India in 1924, Ram Kumar studied painting in New Delhi and Paris. He is a vital part of first generation post-colonial Indian artists, a member of the fabled "Progressive Artist's Group", alongside F. N. Souza, S. H. Raza and M. F. Husain. Kumar has held solo and group exhibitions worldwide, including London, New York, France, Japan and throughout India. He lives and works in New Delhi. This retrospective spans Kumar's oeuvre from his figurative abstract work in the late 1950s, through his move to abstract cityscapes and landscapes, culminating in a set of stunning new works exhibited for the first time in this exhibition.