India's first Biennale to open tomorrow

Over 80 artists from India and abroad, including Ariel Hassan (Argentina), Amanullah Mojadidi (Afghanistan), Rigo23 (Portugal), Joseph Semah (Israeli based in Amsterdam), Ernesto Neto (Brazil) Jonas Staal (Netherlands), Hussain Walmenesh (Australia), Wangechi Mutu (Africa) and Zhang Enli (China) will showcase their creative brilliance through mediums like installation art, painting, sculpture and films.

Among famous signatures of cutting edge art is Kerala born painter Paris Viswanathan, returning home to recreate a nearly four-decade-old masterpiece showing the essence of human life through grains of sand. Also from Kerala are K P Reji, Sosa Joseph and P S Jalaja,besides Mumbai-based artist Jyothi Basu.

 

A quarter of the artistic presence will be from Kerala and an equal number from the rest of the country. "The Biennale does figure a good number of Malayali artists. No less than 22 of them," says Bose Krishnamachari,president of Kochi Biennale Foundation and curator of the pioneering event.

"Quite a few Biennales across the world have the same set of artists.The Kochi edition is introducing some new faces," adds co-curator Riyas Komu, secretary of the Foundation.

Internationally acclaimed Indian artists Subodh Gupta and Vivan Sundaram have worked on themes specific to Kerala.

Gupta, who has rubbed shoulders with international masters, will show life's parables through a country boat, the defining feature of traditional Kerala life. Delhi-based Sundaram revives the memories of the lost Muziris port town in ancient Kerala.

Other Indian artists on show are Anita Dube, Amar Kanwar, Subodh Gupta and Sudarshan Shetty.

Through celebration of contemporary art from around the world, the Biennale seeks to invoke the historic cosmopolitan legacy of Kochi and its mythical predecessor-- Muziris, a once prosperous sea port in 1 BC and believed to have been washed away into the sea in the AD 1331 floods. It is believed to have close links with Rome, Greece, China and Arabia.

The exhibitions will be held across Kochi, Muziris and surrounding islands. (MORE)