Art fraternity scared of taking initiatives: Tate Modern director

A work of art might be seen as a mirror of society, but when it comes to initiatives and experiments, the art fraternity is a bit scared compared to other creative pillars of society like cinema and literature, according to Tate Modern director Chris Dercon.

Dercon was speaking Friday at the second edition of the Kochi Biennale "Contemporary Art at Home and Abroad: Making a Difference".

He said how the art fraternity was still affected by the thought of "what others would say" and till the time a project is successful, they would tend to ignore it.

"The last time I was here for the talk, there were just 60 people present to listen to what I had to say. But today, there are over 200 people in the audience and that shows how the biennale has grown from strength to strength," said Dercon, the director of the gallery in London that deals with modern art.

Such ascending numbers, according to him, also hinted at idiosyncratic behavioural tendency that the artist fraternity was bestowed with and that was holding the belief that "we won't be there till it is worth going".

"This has to change and artists have to be open about things and be the first ones to do the thing," he added.

Dercon also passionately elaborated how the Indian art scene was very complex and dynamic and has over the years found many alternative media to rediscover Indian contemporary art, the biennale being one of them.

He said art can play a major role not only in policy change, but also in contributing to the society.

"Art is a regime which can be occupied by different things at the same time. And amid this, visual art has been able to create a space of its own kind which is extremely porous and transparent," he said.

While the debate on "has contemporary Indian art really found its grounding and audience", Dercon completely believes that history of contemporary Indian art will never be ready.

"The connections in art go back to post-colonial history of India to the present world and there are so many connections in between that artists will keep going back to them. Hence, it would be apt to say that Indian contemporary art is a living, portable museum," he said.

(Shilpa Raina can be contacted at shilpa.r@ians.in)