The 2012 Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB) marked a new chapter in contemporary Indian art. Over a period of three months, the port city of Kochi hosted artists from 23 countries who exhibited site-specific multi-media installations, new media art, paintings, sculptures, street art across the venues marked for the biennale. Now preparations for KMB 2014 are underway with Jitish Kallat, one of India’s leading contemporary artists, as its artistic director and curator. Mumbai-based Kallat is known for his remarkable artistic interventions of photographs and installations using text, light and sound. Excerpts from an interview:
Last year’s biennale focused on site-specificity of works and was spread over to remote locations like warehouses, a dilapidated temple complex and Pepper House, a small restaurant-museum. Is the focus the same this year?
I felt that KMB 2014 must return largely to the same venues to develop its narrative and vocabulary by letting residues of memory from the previous edition filter through. For a young biennale like ours, I felt it was necessary that its relationship to place and community is deepened by its re-emergence in several of the same spaces. That said, artist-colleagues have been offered other interesting sites for consideration and it is up to some of them to see if they would like to consecrate any of these spaces with possibilities. I don’t imagine KMB 2014 as a very site-specific project, but several of the works will be site-responsive and catalysed by the spatial energies of the venues.
What will be your curatorial focus?
I have begun with the intent that the biennale should produce themes rather than re-produce a single premeditated theme. My curatorial focus is dispersed among artists by the process of sharing prompts rather than by suggesting the themes under which artworks will be organised.
One suggestion is to reflect on the present through a process of recall… thinking back to the moment often referred to as the “Age of Discovery”, a period that began in the early 15th century and continued till the 17th century. With great acceleration in maritime activity, it heralded an era of exploitation, conquest, coercive trading, commercial rivalry and colonialism, animating the early processes of globalisation. We can trace back several of the themes that proliferate our lives globally to this embryonic moment in human history. With the arrival of Pedro Alvares Cabral and Vasco da Gama, it was also the time when Kochi was reborn.
The other suggestion is a reflection on our present moment from a distant cosmic glance. As we evoke the thought that right now planet earth is hurtling through space at a dizzying speed in a direction we are unaware of, we can perhaps induce a degree of incomprehension about our very existence and recognise our interdependence as cohabitants of a single journey whose destination is unknown.
I want the biennale to unfold through a refraction of these prompts as ideas and art works.
The first edition was criticised for lack of proper labelling of art works, maps, catalogue and fewer women participants.
There are several women artists in the forthcoming edition. This is purely a reflection of the fact that some of the best art made today is by women. I am already working on how the metadata about the exhibition will drift alongside the experience of viewing it. Hopefully, if the funding is in place in time, Team KMB will be able to manifest what is visualised.
Last year the art world rallied behind the biennale. With an artist of your stature coming on board, the expectations are very high. Are you feeling the pressure?
I am pleased that the art world at large has embraced the biennale. I feel the strength of this biennale is its fragility. Unlike several events in the art world that are fortified by top-down support, this one rises organically from the ground through the intent and imagination of artists. We are trying to do what we can, with what we have. It is all about creatively engaging with the uncertainties and work to make Kochi, with its history and unique location on the southern tip of India — away from the organised art worlds of Delhi and Mumbai — an interesting observation deck from where one can reflect on the world through the discipline of contemporary art.
Is there a greater effort to involve the local people?
We have had three very exciting months where several participating artists have done artist talks and discussion alongside their site visits. Thus the dialogue around art has already begun in Kochi. During the biennale, there will be several projects to engage citizen groups such as children. There will be the students’ biennale, performances and lectures that are being programmed by Riyas Komu.
Six artists to watch out for.
Too early to say. Save the date — December12, 2014 — to find out.
