City of gardens, the Silicon Valley of India… Bengaluru has many names and avatars. Yet, it hasn’t traditionally been associated with art and culture.
An institution located in the heart of the city seeking to change this is the Museum of Art and Photography, better known as MAP Bengaluru. On a recent visit to the museum, we spoke to Shaina Jagtiani, head of communications, MAP, about this unique cultural space and everything happening there.
Excerpts from an edited interview:
Q What was the idea behind the inception of MAP?
A. In 2011, prompted by the absence of a robust museum culture in India, industrialist Abhishek Poddar established the Art & Photography Foundation as a not-for-profit entity. He wanted to share his own extensive collection to kindle interest of the public in visual arts. The Museum of Art & Photography (MAP) was launched in 2020 and has since emerged as a dynamic institution, featuring a diverse collection and a commitment to learning and engagement.
MAP’s digital museum innovatively connects with global audiences through online exhibitions, artist talks, workshops, and quality content by making it accessible to everyone. The brick-and-mortar museum of MAP officially opened its doors on February 18, 2023, with five storeys of art galleries, an auditorium, library, multimedia gallery, technology centre, sculpture courtyard, learning centre, research facility, gift store, café, member’s lounge, and an alfresco restaurant on its terrace.
The vision of MAP has always been to transform the perception of museums as a melting pot of ideas, stories, and cultural exchange that inspire interactions with art to foster feelings of humanity, empathy, and a deeper understanding of our world. As the first major private art museum in South India, MAP seeks to showcase the transformative power of the arts, facilitating cultural exchanges and inspiring a profound connection between people and art.
Q. How is MAP’s team attempting to achieve their vision?
A. At MAP, we envision the future of museums as hybrid institutions seamlessly blending physical and digital dimensions. As India’s exclusive digital-first museum we pioneer diverse approaches to bring art to life, fostering a dynamic cultural exchange globally. Rooted in our mission to democratise art, we strive to redefine the perception of museums, presenting them as vibrant spaces of ideas, storytelling, and dialogue.
Our goal is to make art engaging, educational, entertaining, relevant, and fun, championing inclusion and accessibility in all aspects, from curatorial to administrative. The unique marriage of our physical and digital presence is our USP. We envision these two spaces as complementary, providing a holistic experience for viewers.
Despite India’s rich artistic heritage, we believe our museums have not fully reached their potential in sharing collections seamlessly and innovatively. So, we are revamping the idea of museums and creating engaging experiences to help our community flourish. While going digital is the future for India’s museums, it’s crucial to attract local audiences, young and old, to appreciate the physical museum experience. The aim is to provide global access to India’s artistic legacy while fostering a deep, in-person interaction with art that transcends the digital realm.
Q. What are the things visitors should keep in mind when planning a visit to MAP?
A. MAP has ticketed galleries on the second and third floor with discounts available for students, senior citizens and a few other categories. A non-ticketed gallery on the ground floor rolls out exhibitions on a quicker time frame. The museum is open from Tuesday to Sunday (Mondays closed). Its timings for Sunday-Thursday are from 10 am – 6:30 pm and from Friday-Saturday are 10 am – 7:30 pm. We also offer free entry to all exhibitions on Tuesdays from 2:00 pm – 6:30pm.
There are two digital experience centres on the lower ground floor which explore our AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality) experiments with art. These are ticketed as well. As a museum, we are passionate about making the space accessible to everyone, so we have collaborated with Bloomberg Connects to create audio guides. The artworks on display are assigned with look up numbers that give complete information about these artworks on the Bloomberg Connects app.
Our Cafe IZM on the lower ground floor is a great place for people to hang out for great coffee and desserts. Our al-fresco restaurant, Cumulus is on the terrace and is a place where you can enjoy a delectable menu while enjoying the vistas of Cubbon Park and the Bengaluru skyline. We encourage our visitors to browse through the MAP Shop on the ground floor where we have exclusive MAP merchandise inspired from our diverse collection.
Q. Please tell us about your ongoing exhibitions:
A. We currently have three exhibitions on display: 1. What The Camera Didn’t See by Alexander Gorlizki and the Pink City Studio led by Riyaz Uddin is on at the Infosys Foundation Gallery on the ground floor. In this exhibition, in response to a set of photographs in the MAP collection, British artist Gorlizki reanimates and transforms images of royalty, common people, architecture, nature, and more into vibrant, whimsical narratives by creating layered, elaborate compositions on and around the original photographs. The artworks weave the old and new, the known and the mysterious, in extraordinary ways.
2. Book of Gold: The Kanchana Chitra Ramayana of Banaras at the Axis Bank Gallery and Citi Gallery on the third floor. This exhibit presents a unique rendition of the Ramayana, reconstructing the illustrated manuscript of Tulsidas’ Ramcharitmanas with nearly 80 folios. Originally commissioned by Maharaja Udit Narayan Singh of Banaras, it stands as a testament against the preexisting historical narrative that miniature painting traditions in northern India had faded by the 19th century.
An ambitious project that spanned from 1796 to 1814, The Kanchana Chitra Ramayana (the Golden Illustrated Ramayana), was a collaboration as legendary as the story of the Ramayana itself. The project saw several artists from different schools converging in Banaras to work on this manuscript, making Banaras a cultural hub during that time period. Another distinctive element of this project was that the Bhakti poet’s manuscript was written in Awadhi, the common language of the region, as compared to Valmiki’s use of Sanskrit – the language of the elite.
Painted with ornate gold, and curated by the late Kavita Singh and Parul, this exhibition takes us on a journey of discovery, revealing a variety of artistic styles and craftsmanship, that are now understood as different schools of miniature art, to create one epic illustrated manuscript.
3. Visible/Invisible: Representation of Women in Art through the MAP Collection at the Manipal Gallery and Avanee Foundation Gallery. Through this exhibition, the aim was to bring forth, re-look, requestion, and thereby reorient existing frameworks that surround discourses on gender identities and gendered politics within creative practices. The aim is also to address the need to re-evaluate questions of power and how power operates within gendered relations especially for and within the broader cultural sector.
Showcasing almost a hundred and thirty artworks, the exhibition is divided into four sections, following the exhibition narratives: Goddess and Mortal, Sexuality and Desire, Power and Violence and Struggle and Resistance.
Noor Anand Chawla pens lifestyle articles for various publications and her blog www. nooranandchawla.com.