'Art is a place of tolerance': How artist Kader Attia is shaping the next Kochi-Muziris Biennale

Source Firstpost by Faizal Khan
t the second edition of Kochi-Muziris Biennale in 2014, moon landings and space shuttles showed up on the walls of the Aspinwall House that sat elegantly on the waterfront in Fort Kochi, the heritage town of Kerala on the coast of the Arabian Sea. The images of space missions were the works of French-Algerian artist Kader Attia, who had mounted more than two dozen paintings of old postal stamps issued by countries in Africa and West Asia. Titled “Independence Disillusionment”, Attia’s sprawling installation explored the evolution of nations, from instruments of colonialism to those marching towards modernity, a recurring theme of his artistic practice that connects history and development. More than a decade later, Attia is marking his own evolution at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale by shifting his status from a participating artist at its second edition to the curator of its seventh iteration next year. This week, he made his first public appearance as a curator in Kochi, using the occasion to forge a personal bond with the people and the place. Revealing his humble roots in an impoverished Parisian suburb where he grew up, Attia gave a glimpse of the socio-economic factors that shaped him as an artist very early in life, when he made his own toys and sharpened his artistic skills as he worked in a nearby market to contribute to the family's meagre earnings.
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On Raqs Media Collective

Source Eflux by Kamayani Sharma
The physics, politics, and poetics of time have been one of the central interests of the collective’s practice since it was formed in 1992 by Jeebesh Bagchi, Shuddhabrata Sengupta, and Monica Narula, who met as students at New Delhi’s A.J.K. Mass Communication Research Centre (MCRC). Inspired by the sight of a man dancing at the shrine of thirteenth-century Sufi mystic Nizamuddin Auliya, they named themselves for the dervish’s ecstatic whirl—the raqs or dance in Urdu, Farsi, and Arabic—citing “kinetic contemplation” as their animating philosophy. The Leh curation highlights how their practice engages the trans-Himalayan terrain and history, both ancient and contemporary.
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A Biennale At The Edge Of The World

Source Grazia by Payal Mohta
Ladakh has long existed in popular imagination as a place of extremes: An adventure playground of soaring mountain passes and stark landscapes, monasteries and meditative silence, and a sensitive border region shaped by the realities of war and security. This August, it acquired another identity – as the setting for a new chapter in contemporary art. The inaugural sā Ladakh Biennale, originally scheduled from August 1-10, has been extended until August 31 following an enthusiastic response from local communities, allowing its conversation with the land to continue a little longer.
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The Kalhath Institute celebrates its 10-year anniversary with a gallery show in Mumbai

Source Architectural Digest by Shaikh Ayaz
Maximiliano Modesti fell in love with “everything about India” on his very first trip in 1993. But it was with Indian craftsmanship and the karigars (artisans) engaged in embroidery and textile-related art that he ultimately forged a lifelong bond. Although the market for luxury brands was nonexistent when he first arrived here, Indian crafts felt truly opulent and far superior to anything he had seen in Europe. “It was obvious to me from the beginning that Indian embroidery was a class apart,” recalls the cofounder of Lucknow’s Kalhath Institute, which won the prestigious AD x JSW Prize for Contemporary Craftsmanship in 2018. The exhibition features hybrid works born from a collaboration between Kalhath’s master embroiderers and artists like Yassine Balbzioui, Amina Benbouchta and T Venkanna. These craft-based experiments reveal aspects linking ancestral knowledge and contemporary design aesthetics, urging the viewer to see embroidery as works of art.
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Professor Knut A. Jacobsen argues that Ravi Varma was the undisputed founder of a genre he terms the “God poster industry.”

Source Daily Jstor by
Varma’s popularity grew at the height of the British Empire in India, as Western-style oil painting, with its emphasis on depth and chiaroscuro, gained prominence in the country. He began by painting grand portraits of royal and noble figures from across India and later turned to scenes from Hindu mythology in his work, becoming the first Indian artist to gain a nationwide audience. In “Indian Painting from 1825 to 1900,” published in the 2011 volume Masters of Indian Painting II: 1650-1900, independent researcher Tryna Lyons describes Varma as “the first of India’s ‘gentleman artists’” because, “at the time that he made the daring decision to learn the craft of painting, artists enjoyed roughly the same social status as tailors and cabinet makers.” His paintings and oleographs, produced by his own printing press, came to define Hindu religious iconography in India. Professor Knut A. Jacobsen, in his 2004 article, “The Child Manifestation of Śiva in Contemporary Hindu Popular Prints,” published in Numen, argues that Ravi Varma was the undisputed founder of a genre he terms the “God poster industry.” This genre took on a vibrant life of its own and remains popular today.
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