Indian Radical Painters' and Sculptors' Association

rdf:langString Indian Radical Painters' and Sculptors' Association

rdf:langString The Indian Radical Painters' and Sculptors' Association, also known as the Radical Painters' and Sculptors' Association, the Kerala Radicals, or the Radical Group, was a group of leftisit artists that primarily consisted of Keralites working in Baroda. The group informally originated with the 1985 exhibition Seven Young Sculptors before becoming an active collective of artists who worked and exhibited between 1987 and 1989. The group ended with the suicide of sculptor and leader K. P. Krishnakumar. Other notable artists included K. M. Madhusudhanan, CK Rajan, Alex Mathew and Anita Dube, the only female and non-Keralite member. Heavily influenced by Marxist ideology, the artists emphasized interrogating established aesthetic and political norms while expressing the plight of marginalized and oppressed people. They rejected the revivalism associated with nationalist artists like Abanindranath Tagore and the Bengal School, preferring to use cheap alternative materials like cloth and plaster to reflect the lives of the poor in a postcolonial context. They also rejected the art market and the commodification of art, advocating for a radical, socially conscious form of art.