This was built during 80’s to showcase modern art, basically from the local practitioners, works connected with madras movement etc. There are three galleries (one in each floor). Presently there are hundreds of exhibits utterly irrelevant to contemporary art..Like a horse drawn carriage, industrial exhibits about earthenware pipes,... processing of ceramic floor tiles, aluminum ores, rock art, traditional wood carvings, British portraits and silly exhibits of holographic images.
Apart from badly restored Ravi varma, there may be merely 20-30 paintings hung which could be called technically as contemporary, but I do not understand on what basis they are hung there, and how relevant they in the present day context.
This galleries used to be well maintained till 2000 .The gallery is now looking as mental asylum after it has been hastily reorganized during the museum's 150 years celebrations which was attended by the then president APJ
