Museum of Art and Photography in Bangalore, India, opening soon, will tell the story of Indian art in an entertaining way, founder says
- The Museum of Art and Photography, already operating online, will open in December to show some of it 60,000 pieces of modern and historical art and photography
- The non-profit in ‘India’s Silicon Valley’ is the first major private art museum in South India and aims to educate a nation in which art is grossly underfunded
Bangalore’s new Museum of Art and Photography is far more eclectic than it sounds.
As its founder Abhishek Poddar explains, the non-profit private museum that will open on December 11 has six categories in its collection, including textiles and design.
“It could have been the Museum of Art and Design, or the Museum of Art and Textiles. But you can do a lot more with [the acronym] MAP than MAD or MAT,” says the Indian businessman, who runs an 80-year-old family tea business and a chemicals and explosives company.
The simple, practical, 44,000 sq ft (4,100 square metre) building that houses the museum is in the “museum quarter” of Bangalore, just outside Cubbon Park, a historic green space in the heart of the southern Indian metropolis.
Kolkata-born Poddar has lived in Bangalore – which is the centre of the country’s hi-tech industry – since 1990, and he believes that “India’s Silicon Valley” is better suited than major cities up north for his radical ideas.