Rabindranath Tagore can justifiably be deemed a ‘cultural icon’ in the sense that he embodied and articulated an integrated conception of human culture through his charismatic personality and manifold creative works.

Tagore’s vision of human life is one that stems from the cultural soil of his native Bengal but opens on to and embraces humanity as a whole while each portion of it remains rooted in its native cultural soil. Those who find converging in Rabindranath Tagore and his work a dynamic view of how human life actually is and of how it might be yet more authentically human, have reason to hope that he and his work may become more widely known and more accurately appreciated worldwide. To that end, this exhibition ‘Enduring Legacy’ presents the works of thirteen contemporary artists from India responding to several aspects of Tagore’s immense oeuvre as well as his rich and multi-faceted life and its impact on modern and contemporary cultural thought and practice. The artists use Tagore and his works as points of departure neither confining him in a stultifying orthodoxy of interpretation that he would abhor nor falling in to the trap of producing substandard or tendentious misrepresentations of him and his work. He remains a creative and humane cultural icon and this expression of various aspects of his life and work in this the sesquicentenary of his birth provides much scope for thought.

Anirudh Chari