India’s Biennale Effect

Abstract

India’s Kochi-Muziris Biennale has been described as one of the most significant newly emergent biennales, alongside Shanghai, Sharjah and Dakar. However, aside from theoretical debates about the art as a global format, very little sustained and critical attention has been given to these events as specific sites of production and reception of contemporary art. Drawing on direct engagement with the Kochi Biennale, on-going collaboration with its founders and key participants, and the incorporation of rich visual material, the book provides detailed examination of what the authors term the ‘biennale effect’ – a layered contestation of place, economics, art and politics. The book presents a close reading of the unique context of the Kochi Biennale, as well as setting out a broader critical framework for understanding global, contemporary art and its effects. The Kochi-Muziris Biennale put India on the map of international contemporary visual culture. But the Biennial is much more than a global art event. India's Biennale Effect draws out the Biennale's greater complexity, revealing a movement of contemporary Indian citizens showing and telling their own story. - Chris Dercon, Director Tate Modern, London This book is more than a source for ‘India's first biennale.’ It is a thoughtful, revisionist consideration of the received accounts of biennale culture, as it has been articulated in The Biennale Reader, and by writers such as Hans Belting, Jacques Ranciere, and Nicholas Mirzoeff. D'Souza and Manghani provide a context to consider the relation between the visual and the ‘grounds of the political,’ and to articulate what it means, in Gandhi's image, to have ‘the cultures of all the lands’ blow through the house, without tearing it down. - Prof. James Elkins, E.C. Chadbourne Chair of Art History, Theory, and Criticism, School of the Art Institute of Chicago With a focus on the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, founded in 2012, India’s Biennale Effect maps the complex and shifting interrelationships among local cultural heritage, a regional art market, and global cultural circulations that define the special nature and potential role of the in India. - Ranjit Hoskote, co-curator, 7th Gwangju Biennale While the Kochi-Muziris Biennale is rooted in site specificity, its editions are capable of addressing audiences far beyond the city in which it takes place – to places where people across the globe can have a conversation. This book is the result of such conversations, yet equally explores the various competing and complementing frames and directions through which such dialogue must flow. - Marieke van Hal, Founder of the Biennial Foundation More than the number of visitors or the media attention it receives, the success of a biennial should more importantly be measured in terms of its reverberations within the worldwide artist’s communities as well as by its scholarly impact. With its in-depth academic writing, both thoughtful and entertaining, India’s Biennial Effect is a testament to the latter and an important read for anyone interested in the arts. - Dr. Thomas Girst, Head of Cultural Engagement, BMW India’s Biennale Effect is situated at the heart of critical debates around global art history and contemporary artists’ practice. It offers an array of fascinating insights into the unique conjunction of people, place, time, politics, economics and aesthetics that constitutes India’s first Biennale. - Frances Morris, Director Tate Modern, London