The Song of Small Things

Head inserted in the human web | 2015 | Bronze | 13 x 11.5 x 18 inches

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Boat inserted inside human web | 2016 | Bronze | 24 x 15.5 x 21 inches

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Dissolving a cubical order | 2015 | Bronze | 11.5 x 12 x 16 inches

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Entity of fan fare | 2018 | Bronze | 23 x 13 x 22.5 inches

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Song of the road | 2014 | Bronze | 24 x 15 x 19 inches

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The tiny figures that represent them are faceless; even their biological
identities are ambivalent and they are bereft of all markers of
individuality. They are images of people who have, like the artist, left
a world behind, and carry memories of it, but the struggles of daily life
do not give them the leisure to ponder over it, to remember it, to feel
nostalgic about it, to savour it in imagination, to mourn its loss or to
raise it as an alternative to the present. Migrant recollections and the
migrants’ life are explored at two levels in Radhakrishnan’s sculptures.
Remembrances bring the distant closer, give it a sweetness, a grace
in excess of life and enlarge it in the mind’s eye. The struggle, unless it
is heroic, stamped with imminent success or tragic doom, diminishes
the individual, makes him ordinary, reduces him to the common man.

Prof. R. Siva Kumar,
Dept. of art history Viswabharati University, Santiniketan





3 Passenger on the shoulder | 2015 | Bronze | 24 x 14 x 20 inches

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Clario-net | 2018 | Bronze | 13 x 23 x 24 inches

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3 Sphere of abandon | 2016 | Bronze | 15.5 x 15x 35.5 inches

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From the heart of tabla | 2016 | Bronze | 20 x 14 x 21 inches










Boat on the wave | 2014 | Bronze | 23 x 8.5 x 24 inches4

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Maiya is both arrow and bow | 2011 | Bronze | 108 x 108 inches [Uttarayan Complex, Santiniketan]

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Maiya is both arrow and bow | 2015 | Bronze | 70.5 x 60 x 27.5 inches



‘Maiya as Arrow’ (1993, 1998 & 2011) is one pivotal work that I would
like to elaborate upon while I speak about the independent existence
of Maiya vis-à-vis Musui. The seed of this sculpture was sown in
Radhakrishnan’s mind in the early 90s. The idea was to portray Maiya
as a sharp, intelligent woman who decides her own destiny in life.
Both as a social being and as an artist, Radhakrishnan believes in the
independence of women and for him Maiya symbolizes their freedom.
In this work, clearly done with an intention to be presented in open air
(but a few editions of the early version of this sculpture were initially
displayed in galleries), the artist converts the outstretched hands of
Maiya in the form of a bow and her horizontally oriented body turns
into a metaphorical or symbolic arrow. The only external addition to the
sculpture is the string that holds the tension of the bow by connecting
either ends of Maiya’s hands. Structurally speaking, Radhakrishnan
balances the whole body weight of Maiya on her right hand that
touches the ground. And metaphorically speaking, Maiya is portrayed
as someone capable of launching herself into a trajectory that would
decide her future course of life. Here her subjectivity is inextricably
linked to the agency of her acts, emphasizing duty and responsibility
as conscious choices rather than those imposed upon women.

JohnyML, Independent curator, writer








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Musui inside the nest | 2014 | Bronze | 16 x 14.5 x 7 inches










Boat over the home | 2018 | Bronze | 18 x 22.5 x 28 inches4

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Maiya taking off from milestone on the ramp | 2016 | Bronze | 23 x 14 x 17.5 inches





3Song of the morning bell | 2018 | Bronze |10.5 x 9.5 x 20 inches

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Smooth sailing of the boat | 2016 | Bronze | 22 x 12 x 21 inches











































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Into hallowed light - 2 | 2018 | Bronze | 10.5 x 18 x 25 inches

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Notes from clipboard | 2014 | Bronze | 15 x 10 x 8 inches





3Face to face / method & wisdom | 2018 | Bronze | 20 x 18 x 21 inches 73

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3On wings of breeze | 2015 | Bronze | 30 x 62 x 21 inches

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Growing bacon / torch | 2018 | Bronze | 24 x 12 x 30.5 inches






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3Song of the latex (Rubber milk) | 2018 | Bronze | 18 x 18 x 44.5 inches 79

Studio at Chattarpur, New Delhi













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Seeing through the lens | 2018 | Bronze | 15.5 x 12 x 13.5 inches4

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Ephemera | 2014 | Bronze | 30 x 30 x 63 inches

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Descending figures as ascending structure | 2010 | Bronze | 53 x 51 x 28 inches
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Candle light | 2018 | Bronze | 22 x 16 x 14 inches

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For a while now, Radhakrishnan’s works have contained two ideas:
one focusing on the individual figures of Musui and Maiya; and the
other of multitude of figures in migration. On the one hand he centers
on individual figures and on the other he throws light on the collective
whole of the masses. Radhakrishnan thus delves upon the micro
and the macro, the singular and the plural. He allows the viewer to
understand the energy which revolves around the individual as well as
the dynamic that animates the collective, thus exploring the individual
existence of Musui in a universe of many like him. The juxtaposition
of these ideas makes the fullness of life come alive as exemplified
through the presence of one amongst many, and of the union of Musui
and Maiya. Thus, all social and religious demarcations are blurred.
In the groups of figures bodies possess no gender or identity. Their
movements depict the essential essence of man, and as they plunge
into boxes or hang from a pole, the objective comes home. An identity
is created, all exclusiveness is shed, and Musui embarks upon a new
journey that unfolds through constant movement.

Tanya Abraham, Independent writer, curator




86 Maiya walking with a boat | 2010 | Bronze | 62 x 31.5 x 30 inches4

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Maiya on Musui | 2013 | Bronze | 18.5 x 12.5 x 8 inches

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Crossing the pitfall (detail)





The scale of these sculptures suggest that Radhakrishnan does not
wish to valorise this struggle, as an activist-sculptor could have perhaps
done. He recognises its demeaning effect but does not dramatize it
by focusing on brutalized bodies, for instance. He looks at it from a
distance and focuses on the human resilience the migrants express,
without zooming in on their suffering or their wounds. The invisible links
these faceless men and women forge allow them to cross chasms that
would have otherwise swallowed them. By putting their individualities
behind them and forging a rhythmic connection with others, they
fortify themselves and create a network of force as a collective.
It is this resilience and strength of such impromptu collectives and the
rhythms of everyday life they weave that Radhakrishnan celebrates in
sculptures like Crossing the Pitfall.

Prof. R. Siva Kumar,
Dept. of art history Viswabharati University, Santiniketan




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Smiles are truth-sayers, they announce much of the person’s being.
They mark out happy souls, or those that want to be. On the constant
ramped climb, smiles prepare the soul for adventure, open it to the
beauty of others, set it on a path anew. The smile revokes pain, reduces
crises to cares, and cares to caresses. A smile is an expression in the
right direction in the search for meaning that demands internal and
external bearing.
Yet, as much as we like the smile, it will remain a sign of fear, of
dismay, a disguise to hide the reality of what is really happening on
this climb. We desire the smile of happiness in our loved ones, and we
demand the subservient smile from those we pay. We train ourselves
to ignore the fine line between the smile and the grimace, but the
more we train, the more we see. That smile that does not reach above
the upper lip leaves everyone looking up into the eyes, and maybe
these windows should not be ignored.


Raimi Gbadamosi
Curator and independent writer, London








Musui walking with Maiya | 2014 | Bronze | 111 x 45 x 41 inches4
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The figures of ‘Freehold’, avatars of Musui and Maiya, carry the charge
of this ‘social Antipodes’, this ‘cultural underground’. The original
Santhal model on whom Radhakrishnan based Musui, and the real-
life Maiya that we could imagine as his life-companion, have doubtless
been worn down by age and the hard school of experience. But their
counterparts in sculpture symbolise a continuously regenerated
energy that is difficult to subjugate. The expression of the ‘Freehold’
figures is beatific, serenely indifferent to the inexorable passage of the
seasons, the vagaries of history, and the grinding forces of economic
and political transition. As they extend themselves mercurially and
prodigally into an assembly of scintillating avatars, Musui and Maiya
metamorphose into many people and many things: they subsume a
diversity of epochs and cultures, predicaments and scenarios.

Ranjit Hoskote
Writer, art critic and independent curator, Mumbai


























3Maiya as liminal figure | 2015 | Bronze | 56 x 31.5 x 20 inches 93

Molten metal on the milestone | 2010 | Bronze | 18 x 18 x 68 inches

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Imp (Musui) on the portal | 2015 | Bronze | 14 x 15 x 29 inches4

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Relief from within inwardly | 2010 | Bronze | 19.5 x 30 inches

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Ascending figures | 2016 | Bronze | 51 x 48 x 24 inches













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