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Kochi mayor Tony Chammany
buys the first KMB 2014 ticket.
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Global art is turning a new leaf with the India's
coastal city of Kochi, employing largely unconventional aesthetics to welcome
back the second edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB).
Focusing on works that unconventionally or quirkily
narrate the region's legends, "Whorled Explorations" will feature 100
artworks by 94 artists across India and abroad.
The 108-day-long extravaganza was opened to the
media for the first time on 11 December, a day prior to the official opening,
when the artistic director and curator of Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2014, Jitesh
Kallat, conducted an on-site tour for journalists.
"The biennale is back again in Kochi; this
time with 100 works of 94 artists from 30 countries at eight venues,"
Mumbai-based Kallat announced to the media before the start of the press tour
at the Aspinwall House, one of the eight venues for the event.
He was introduced to the media by Bose
Krishnamachari, president of the Kochi Biennale Foundation, which is organising
the contemporary art festival.
Kallat, himself an artist of international repute,
said the second edition of Kochi-Muziris Biennale set to invoke mysterious
expedition of earth. Kochi was an interesting site to invoke the mysterious
expedition of the Earth, "our shared dwelling hurtling through space at
dizzying velocity".
The theme of understanding the world through the
inter-planetary movement has been presented through the varying forms of art
works, "beginning with the first work at the Aspinwall House in 'Power of
Ten' by the late Charles and Ray Eames, the Americans whose work shaped
modernist design in post-war United States."
Partnering with the Kerala Tourism department, the
Kochi Biennale Foundation has also invited architecture students from Spain and
India to build a prototype for a bamboo roof for covering the trenches in
Pattanam where the Kerala Council of Historical Research is conducting an
archaeological excavation to track out Kerala's early history surrounding the
Spice Route.
"This bamboo roof at the biennale will be a
place where visitors can gather and converge," explained Kallat.
The central exhibition of the 2014 Biennale would
include India's traditional yet evolving music, dance, percussion, theatre and
ballet besides cinema, and a series of seminars and lectures by scholars around
the globe.
KFB 2014, which relies heavily on both governmental
and private funding, would be inaugurated by Kerala Chief Minister Oommen
Chandy at 7:30pm on 12 December at Fort Kochi's Parade Ground after a 90-minute
"Pandi Melam", an ethnic ensemble comprising 300 artistes on Chenda,
cymbals, pipes and horns.
The other venues for this year's Biennale, which
will last till 29 March 2015, include the David Hall, CSI Bungalow, Cabral
Yard, Kashi Art Gallery, Vasco da Gama Square and Durbar Hall.
