The artist as a poet

Prabhakar Barwe is that rare artist whose work defies description and cannot be easily slotted under a convenient label

A quiet and wonderful revolution has taken root in the world of Indian art — the unheralded re-discovery of Indian masters lost to the mists of time whose work is being realised and celebrated by curators questioning their absence from the mainstream narrative. And an excellent example of this is Prabhakar Barwe whose Mumbai retrospective, Inside the Empty Box, has now travelled to New Delhi in the form of Astitva: The Essence of Prabhakar Barwe. Curated by Jesal Thacker at the National Gallery of Modern Art, the exhibition is an eye-opener too for the number of institutions and private collectors