The Kochi Muziri Biennale The Indian century begins now

India launched its first Biennale for Contemporary Art in Kochi on 12/12/12 and according to art critics worldwide, it has been a huge success.

The Kochi Biennale story is one of integrity, hard work, sacrifice, leadership, determination and gurs by the Biennale Foundarion and a handful of political leaders who maintained a belief that India can again foster big picmre inspiration and that ir deser ves nourisbmenr of the newe st ideas.

1n 2010, the then Cultural Minister for Kerala Mr M A Baby and well- known KeraJa artists Bose Krishnamachari and Ryas Komu initiated the Indian Biennale idea and succeeded enormous ly in pulling it off. Ir was affirmed in the office of the Prime Minister, and the Kochi Muzi.ris BiennaJe Foundarion was formed with d1e date set at December 12, 20 12 (12/12/12).

Bur for the visionary leadership of these few, Inrlia's first real contemporar y art event almost would not have happened. Ir was plagued by baseless allegations of corruption and beset by gover nment enquiries. When public funding was wid1drawn after a change of stare government, the Biennale Foundation forged on and attracted private s p on so rship.

T o t heir credit they produced a magnificent show, which die world of arr is talking about. Australia coo can be proud of backing a winner as out of 6 international project supporters, 3 are Australian: the Australia Council, Department of Foreign Affairs, and Trade and Asia Llnk.

Of the 80 artists, 6 were Australian and an adrlitional 10 Australians were involved in satellite shows, as well as Melbourne U niversity and the U nivers ity of Soudi Aus11·alia.

WhyKochi1

Kochi is not just interesting, but also the right choice for lnrlia 's first Biennale a nd Keralires should be proud. Thi s coastal city was a thriving cosmopolitan centre for hundreds of years before Europe even knew that the East existed! Kochi has the first mosque in India, die first church and d1e first synagogue. It has held communities of Arabs, Chinese and Europeans al o ngside the dynamic Dravidians, and is rhe only p lace in India where duee different European nations ruled consecurively and continuously for over 400 yea rs. Kochi had die second elected communise government in the world and is still die most literate stare in lndia.

A venue with character

It seems d1at Kochi i s d1e natural home for new ideas The island of Fort Koch.i where the Biennale is centred, offers a contained yet spacious environment to exhibit and create work, acconm1odace visitors and artists, all with.in walking distance of venues. le has a multitude of abandoned spice warehouses, lanes, walls and forgotten gardens, pungent widi memory and character. The Biennale foundation has mrned many into world-class arr spaces.

The huge Aspin Wa ll House, an abandoned space and coconut f:ib re trade house on the sea waJl, is the main venue. \Vorks are dis played in small and vast rooms, previous ly kitchens and offices. ln pours an abundance of tropical light, and outside are immense cargo ships and wooden fishing boars so close you can touch diem. It is potentially tbe most picnrresque biennale venue in the world.

The venues, location, histor y combined w ith the sheer determination to make rhe event wo rk with the raw ene1·gy of international and local artists working side by side in hear and humidity widi tradesmen and lahourers, all came together to create a fierce audienticiry d1at makes the KMB a very ln dian and a very new and in1porranc art e.,petience for d1e world.

Behind the scenes

Some of the accusations hurled ar the organisers were of elirism and exclusivism, ye t I wimessed both Artistic Directors Bose and R yas, as well as high profile members of the organising committee, attend communi ty event after communi ty evenr when no one else was looking. On one day they were ,velcoming the world's mosc impor tant artists ro lndia:

Ai

Wei Wei, die director of and the next day d1ey were

Ernesto Neto, Life is a River at the Cochin Carnival community event with 25 local women in a small temple. t o entourage, no pretence; the office is open, bustling and focussed everyday

An avid audtence

Most importantly however, I wimessed the rare delight of ordinary people engaging with contemporary art for the first time, and loving it. The difficult videos of Pakistani artist Rashid Rana who uses tiny moving cut squares from pornographic videos, which are inoffensive, yet somehow seductive; tl1en there is a collage that depicts victims of a suicide bombing. In a terrib le moment of recognition we are fo rced to link seductio n and violence, forced to acknowledge a horrific familiarity.

There was a policeman who spoke little English, b u t knew every sensitive video piece by Australian artist Angelica l\1[esti by heart, who showed me aro1md

Moidu's house. I saw crowds of families reading tl1e heart-breaking books of Amar [(anwar's rec ords of farmer suicides, page by page and watching open - mouthed die h idden protests against forced land accusation by villagers in Chhattisgarh. 1 saw auto driv ers parking their 3 -wheelers and coming in to see sculpmres by Subodh Gupta, videos by Chinese artists and installati ons by South African artists. I spoke to lawyers, businessmen, srudenrs, children, housewives and u nemployed labourers in exhibition halls who had favourite pieces. I saw a mum a nd ber two teenage daughters in full Islamic dress laughing like children as they discovered a sculpnire in Cabral Yard. I saw the slow drip feed of idea s seeping inro the local psyche: a worker temrned from Dubai who was motivated co enter one of his photos i.n a nati on al competition and won; an engineer p icking up his pen to write creatively after spending days in the free library of art and design in David Hall; a chai shop owner talking to the media about the value oi art after his portrait drawn on a wall became

Aspinwall House the centre of a controversy.

There's taU, of a sid e exhibition of t hose inspired by the Biennale at its next event.

Art Ii berated!

Room after room of sensitive, intelligent, gutsy, humb le artworks, and I could not progress without stopp ing to call a fri end to share t he delig ht After years of seeing exhibitions of paintings in Delhi and Mumbai by artists desperate to sell tbeir wor k to survive, here comes this confident explosion of audacious tenacity Arr liberated! I was deeply moved by t he focussed humanity that had gone imo d1 is exhibition. This event represented ever y potential

Biennale in the makin

goodness l knew existed in the new lndian psyche new international works on screens and rarely have a chance to view them for real. curiosity on how Indian artists reflected the rapid changes India was experiencing. ver the last decade much has been spoken of the ' boom' in Indian art, sparked by an increase in purchasing power of the middle classes coupled with an international

J\rt is about ideas, not products. Art is a container for ideas, if you like. Ideas are the raw material for creativity Creativity expands personal freedom and accelerates human progress, not necessarily in industry but also in relatio n ships, w 1derstanding, inventions, design, sensitivity, health and the underl ying reasons for why we do what we do. An is an essential ingredient of a d ynamic and heald1y soci ety. Art gives us not only the tools, but also the permiss ion to think. So if you like ideas a nd you love India, get to Koch.i before March 13, and see India shining.

This boom however, was short lived. Many galleries were exploiting a new market and it could also be argued that an unsupported art infrastructure in India - museums, critics, pub l ication s, tertiary courses and events - meant that there was not sufficient depth to sustain it

Supporters of the arts know that aeative societies are prosperous ones and that a sustainable arts sector cannot happen without public and private funding for experimental art and an art-educated public. For this to happen, large public events for the visual arts are required. Over 150 cities worldwide now host Biennales. A Biennale for contemporary art is an event for which India has been crying out.

The idea of an International Indian visual art event is not new to

The recent boom/ bust renewed interest in the visual arts and soon the India Art Fair in Delhi originated. However, like art fairs across the world, it is an art supermarket where the price tag is often more important than the ideas within the work. Money always turns heads, but ideas are more difficult to sell; hence a Biennale, where nothing is bought nor sold but instead simply invites people to engage with ideas, was harder to get off the ground.

Visual art has the reputation of being the most avant garde of all of the art genres; a little different from performing arts and l iterature. It is non-conformist, but provides a richer space for ideas and is often controversial.

The lack of public or private funding for radical experimentation or conceptual art in India has forced most practicing artists either out of India or into commercia l applications, such as paintings for home decoration. It has also meant that l ocal artists have to see

The eterna l problem for artists worldwide is the tyranny of commercial galleries, that is, making what people want to buy. One antidote to this is what has become known as a ' Biennale, invented in Venice inl 895. This i s a curated exhibition happening every two years and is usually attached to a city. Biennales are expect ed to be the apex of avant garde, where the most complex ideas in art give a censorship-free snapshot of the current social philosophical and political landscape from that city's perspective. Indian artists have been well represented in international Biennales for decades, and their highly sophisticated ideas about India have been consumed by foreign audiences.

Indian audiences and Indian artists came together in a serious space to discuss reviving an interest in contemporary art, and thus was born the conce pt of the Kochi Muzirls Biennale Foundation. /)t1111r'!<.,,mul/1 '11: J11rh.dt,11t ,.r1t:larl11111ilf,l,,1.1lilrt! mdu"r~ d lf,lfJt:rtiu ,n 1111/i,1.fnrl/lrr 5J·ran..1pr11It11111,rtt!I 11! //,r. Hio.1 t1fr Ui'dlmg n 11 1r,,r/