‘I am very focused on making art part of everyday living in India’

‘I am very focused on making art part of everyday living in India’

Art should not be locked away,” says Kiran Nadar, and one imagines vaults the world over springing open at her words. It is clear, within moments of meeting her, that this is a woman who gets things done. “It’s true,” she says, smiling warmly. “I am very determined. Building a collection requires a certain focus, and I am very focused on making art part of everyday living in India.”

In only a decade, Nadar has built, from scratch, the first private museum of modern and contemporary art in India, and already the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) in New Delhi has the clout of a national institution. More than 6,000 pieces describe the arc of Indian and South Asian art, from late 19th century masters such as Raja Ravi Varma, through the modern explosion of the Bombay Progressives, to conceptual, confrontational works by emerging artists.

“It’s quite encyclopaedic,” Nadar acknowledges. “I have actually collected at great speed in the last 10 years. I have no background in art, but I started collecting to decorate my private residence and became very enthused. Once the house was full, I was just putting the work into storage, and that didn’t feel right. My husband and I have a lot of philanthropic projects, and I thought, well, an art museum is also an act of philanthropy — let’s do it.’

Shiv Nadar, a pioneer of India’s IT industry, who founded and chairs the $8.6-billion global tech company HCL Enterprise, was swiftly drawn into his wife’s new passion. “My first acquisition for our house in Delhi was a very graphic male nude by Rameshwar Broota,” says Nadar. “It was quite a courageous purchase, and my husband said, ‘What are you doing, buying a painting like this?’ I said, ‘Well, I’ve bought it. If you don’t want the painting, then we have to go and tell the artist’.” 
“So we drove to Rameshwar’s studio to look at the piece, and once he saw it, my husband was convinced. He said, ‘You know, you are right. We should buy this’. 

The Shiv Nadar Foundation is a field leader in social-impact projects. To date, it has established a research-led university, an engineering college, a school and a model village, with the purpose of raising the aspirations and achievements of India’s poorest. Nadar sees KNMA in the same light.

“It’s impossible for the state to do everything and our state institutions are not being run as they should be. I felt that the country has a lot of responsibilities and that the private sector should pitch in. Art was one area where I felt I had a contribution to make. So the museum is free to anyone who likes to visit, plus we have a lot of educational and outreach programmes. We bring in busloads of students and schoolchildren, help them to understand the exhibits, and provide art materials for them to create their own work inspired by the pieces in the museum. I feel very strongly that the museum should be a place of confluence, where art is not merely housed and displayed, but is discussed and appreciated as a way of engaging with the world,” she adds.

KNMA’s current location, in a shopping mall in South Delhi’s Saket neighbourhood, was part of Nadar’s strategy to reach the people. “Art is not a great interest in Delhi. Mumbai has a lot of interest, Kolkata has a lot of interest, but Delhi is a bureaucratic city; people would rather wander around a mall than go to a museum. We’ve had a lot of success bringing in working people, and there is support from the middle classes, but the elite has no interest at all. It’s partly to do with the fact that art isn’t considered an asset class in India,” says Nadar. 

“In the West, if you have a million-dollar apartment, you have art worth two to three million in that apartment, but this is not the case in India; the elite invest in property, they invest in jewellery, but they don’t think of art as an investment,” she says.

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