Allowing for some interruptions during the two World Wars, the biennale has remained relevant, though it has not always been without its hiccups. While artists such as Gustav Klimt, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Gustave Courbet were exhibited here in 1910, the same year a painting by Pablo Picasso was removed for its perceived shock value. Indeed, Picasso only made his appearance at the biennale in 1948 – a year after the Progressive Artists’ Group in Bombay had begun to make waves in India, shocking Bombay’s genteel public with their first group exhibition in 1949.

But 1948 was also the year that Peggy Guggenheim was invited to exhibit her New York collection of art that she had assiduously built up and turned into a museum, marking the importance of patronage – and collectors – in the creation of art destinations. That has not happened yet in India with organisations still paying only lip-service to collectors at a time when most state museums are stretched for funds and can no longer be relied on to become repositories of the art of our times.

India’s contemporary artists have been shown at the Venice Biennale supported by promoters and curators in the West – Subodh Gupta’s Very Hungry God springs famously to mind – and the only time the country had a national pavilion was in 2011 when Ranjit Hoskote curated an exhibition of works by Zarina Hashmi, Praneet Soi, Gigi Scaria and The Dream Machine. This year, the Gujral Foundation is participating with the curiously titled My East is Your West that dwells on the phenomenon of dualities with works by Indian artist Shilpa Gupta and Pakistani artist Rashid Rana. In a collateral event, Seema Kohli’s Hiranyagarbha or Golden Womb series will be shown at Personal Structures, questioning the conundrum of time, space and existence.

At the time of writing, New Delhi is beginning to empty as the art fraternity heads for the cooler climes of Europe, finding a place for Venice in their travels. India’s lack of a visible presence might be embarrassing, but this is the place to view the art of our times, as future stars are allowed to question and provoke, but also evoke our admiration. This year, the Iceland pavilion’s transformation of a former church into a mosque by artist Christoph Buchel has created a storm of views from which some discourse might yet emerge. Venice might not famously be the Oscars of the art world but for six months now it will be at the cusp of art and civilisation, offering us a tantalising glimpse of how future generations will view our current times.

It also offers the art world an opportunity to schmooze. Here the great and the good will rub shoulders with the pretenders and wannabes. The smorgasbord of art and conversation is heady, more potent than the champagne that will be served and the cheese that will be nibbled. India’s presence as participants might be fleeting, but you can be sure that among those who navigate Venice’s canals and bridges will be many who hold Indian passports – and dreams – close to their chests. With the hope that, one day not too far away, its artists will sweep Venice off her feet.

Kishore Singh is a Delhi-based writer and art critic.New Delhi 

The post Sweeping Venice off her feet first appeared on Indian Art News.

The post Kochi Art On World Map first appeared on Indian Art News.

Kochi Muziris Biennale 2014 Crowd Funding CampaignFacebook/ Kochi-Muziris Biennale

Kochi Muziris Biennale 2014 Crowd Funding CampaignFacebook/ Kochi-Muziris Biennale

The post Kochi Muziris Biennale 2014: Shashi Tharoor, Ashiq Abu Ask Followers to Help Raise Rs. 15 Crore first appeared on Indian Art News.

The post Preparations Under Way for the Kochi Biennale first appeared on Indian Art News.

The state has moved forward by opening itself up to the larger world of art outside its geographical boundaries, but its visual arts sensibility has scope to become more active, the Padma Bhushan-winning septuagenarian said in the run-up to his first-ever show in native Kerala.

Ramachandran, who left Thiruvananthapuram in 1957 to do higher studies in art at Santiniketan, notes that the cultural environment in Kerala those days was not congenial for artists, prompting many talents to leave the state.

“Of late, a few in that generation are getting a chance to exhibit their work back home,” the Delhi-based master observes ahead of his exhibition starting in Kochi on August 11. The 15-day exhibition, being organised by the Vadehra Art Gallery (VAG) and curated by art historian R Siva Kumar of Visva-Bharati University, is a compact retrospective of the artist and will showcase 100 works.

Ramachandran, who has been living in the New Delhi since 1964, recalls that Malayali artists had found it tough to flourish in Kerala even in the first half of the 20th century. “That is how and why K C S Paniker, C Madhava Menon and K G Subramanyan left for greener pastures. The local system was non-supportive.”

He recalls that the situation was “no different” even when he boarded the train to West Bengal. “I knew Kerala wasn’t the place for a serious pursuit of art. While things have changed, there are still miles to go.”

Substantiating his point, the 78-year-old artist notes the magnitude of protest India’s first Biennale faced in its host state of Kerala last year. “The art circles there could not realise the momentousness of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale,” said the native of Attingal downstate, referring to the staunch opposition the three-month contemporary-art extravaganza faced even during its three months run.

Kerala, says the artist who post-graduated in Malayalam, could accommodate new trends in literature and cinema and celebrate the works of modernists such as Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai, Vaikkom Muhammed Basheer and P Kesavadev and appreciate G Aravindan and Adoor Gopalakrishnan. “In painting, though, the state got stuck for long in the realistic school of Raja Ravi Varma (1848-1906).”

Ramachandran was briefly chairman of the Kerala Lalithakala Akademi in the early 1990s.

Prof Siva Kumar, who has written extensively on modern Indian art, the Kochi show is being curated with a certain chronology in mind. “It will cover his works of the last five decades – from 1964 till that of 2013.”

Delhi-based art scholar Rupika Chawla notes Ramachandran possess a “unique” sense of colours that has kept changing over the years. “There is a moving luminosity in his works.”

The post Kerala a Better Place for Art first appeared on Indian Art News.