THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: In less than 10 days, the Kochi-Muziris Biennale will draw to a close. But for one artist and a collective, this isn’t the end of the journey. Filmmaker and artist KM Madhusudhanan and New Delhi-based Raqs Media Collective, a group of three media practitioners—Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula and Shuddhabrata Sengupta—have been invited to showcase their work at the 56th Venice Biennale, which is being curated this year by Okwui Enwezor.
“I consider this a great opportunity to expand and explore further my interest in art,” says Madhusudhanan, the only Malayalee artist to be showing at the Venice Biennale. The oldest Biennale in the world, the six month art extravaganza will begin on May 9.
Building a space
Madhusudhanan is taking 70 charcoal drawings, titled Penal Colony, to Venice. A continuation of his series, Logic of Disappearance (an installation of 90 charcoal drawings), that he displayed at KMB, this work traces one of the darkest chapters of Kerala history—the Malabar rebellion, or the 1921 Wagon tragedy, during the British rule. The drawings are themed around 67 prisoners who were suffocated to death in a closed iron wagon. “The series will also reflect themes inspired by Frans Kafka’s In the Penal Colony,” says the artist, adding that he is looking “forward to meeting artist Christian Boltanski and German filmmaker Alexander Kluge.”
Giving Voice
Raqs Media Collective, which put up a site-specific installation—Log Book Entry Before Storm, at Kashi Art Gallery—will be taking something new to Venice. An ambitious piece, Coronation Park is “an installation that will combine the hubris of imperial ambition with a re-reading of George Orwell’s salutary text on the wielding of power, Shooting an Elephant,” explains Narula. Having participated in different editions of the Sao Paulo, Istanbul, Liverpool, Sharjah, Taipei and Shanghai Biennales, this is their second time in Venice (the first was in 2003). “We have many old friends participating in the Venice Biennale this year and we are looking forward to catching up with all of them.” he concludes. Logic of Disappearance will be on display at at Aspinwall House till March 29.