Sumedh Rajendran

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Born in 1972 in Trivandrum, Kerala, Sumedh Rajendran completed his Bachelor’s degree in Sculpture from the College of Fine Arts in 1994, and obtained his Master’s degree from the Delhi College of Art in 1999.

In each of Rajendran’s artworks, whether photographs or installations, the artist makes a conscious decision to raise awareness about the world around him. His sculptures amalgamate various fundamental forms, resulting in hybrid species that break down any preconceived notions one may have about types, classes and categories. His use of industrial materials such as ceramic tiles, steel and iron also breaks barriers by transforming tough, primal materials into the organic forms that make up his installations.

“Rajendran employs a deliberately restrained lexicon of images, pared downt to essential, stylized outlines: among them, the horse, the airplane, the car, the squatting man, the boot, the dog and the helicopter. His materials, too, are carefully chosen: artificial leather that is black and polished; sheet metal that is punch-embossed or fashioned into cut-outs; shiny white ceramic tiles; clean-lined steel and the imprint of tar’ tin trunks with vestigal handles and lids, stretched or otherwise manipulated into sculptural elements. By combining these images and materials in an intriguing mélange, the sculptor blurs the distinction between the erotic and the political (as his phallic, leather-clad bombs), the public and the private (as when the white-tiled wall, unnervingly evocative of a public toilet, turns into a figment of a dream), and solemnity and play (as when the airplane hangs above an ebullient retriever, with a plastic can clenched in his mouth).

Indeed, Rajendran’s works are geared to logic of binary activation at many levels: they combine the sophistication of high finish with the unpredictability of improvisation. They swing, in emphasis, between the restlessness of travel and the fixity of architecture. And almost all of them are mounted as wall pieces, positioned in a conceptual space between the self-consistent, unsociable modernist sculpture and the more open-endd, loquacious postmodern sculptural object retains its selfhood but is amenable to interpretation; it is silent without being taciturn, and can communicate without being talkative.

Sumedh Rajendran’s pairing of disparate objects, his juxtaposition of diverse contexts, is intended to politicise his viewers by forcing them to experience and acknowledge the simultaneity of comfort and suffering, pleasure and unease, without resort either to the austere solace of morality or the nonchalance of hedonism.” – Rajit Hoskote.

Rajendran’s most recent solo exhibitions include ‘Chemical Smuggle’ at Grosvenor Vadehra, London, in 2007; ‘Final Call’ at Anant Art Centre, New Delhi, in 2006; ‘Street fuel Blackout’ at Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai, in 2006; and ‘Pseudo-Homelands’ at Rohtas Art Gallery, Lahore, in 2005. Amongst his most recent group endeavors are ‘Indian Summer’ at Galerie Christian Hosp, Berlin, in 2009; ‘Progressive to Altermodern’ at Grosvenor Gallery, London, in 2009; ‘The Human Animal’ at Gallery Threshold, New Delhi, in 2009; ‘Inaugural Show’ at Sakshi Gallery, Taipei, in 2009; and ‘Urban Spiel: A Study of Sculpture and Material’ at Bodhi Art, Berlin, in 2008. Rajendran has also participated in various artist residencies including those hosted by Hat Residency Program, Manchester, in 2007; Theertha International, Colombo, in 2006; and Khoj, New Delhi, in 2003.