Category: India
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Cow dung art
At the 2016 Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Slovenian artist Aleš Šteger has built a pyramid covered with cow dung cakes. Going through the labyrinthine passageway inside, one hears a cacophony of soft voices reciting verses in the original language of the poets who have written them. They all speak of exile. Šteger has made a ‘Pyramid of…
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Coir in Pepper House
In the courtyard of Pepper House, one of the venues of the 2016 Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Indian artist Praneet Soi had put up a number of sculptures made of coir on wooden supports. Soi had chosen to work with coir especially for the Biennale since this material has been and still is so important for the…
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Fort Kochi
And when you have got enough for a moment of the art in Aspinwall, you open the windows and doors and look outside. Aspinwall is the name of the old 19th century trading company whose compound with deserted office buildings and warehouses in Fort Kochi is the main venue of the Kochi-Muziris Art Biennale. With…
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Paper Bathroom
Bathroom Set (2016) is an art work by Dia Metha Bhupal that was shown at the recent Kochi-Muziris Biennale. It is life-size, and the urinals, toilet, wash basins, floor, walls, ceiling, everything is made of rolled and glued scraps of paper. Thousands and thousands of little paper rolls. They say it took her 18 months…
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Dream Stop
is the title of the ingenious installation by Gary Hill shown at the recent Kochi-Muziris Biennale. With 31 video cameras and as many projectors, equipped with special mirrors and lenses, he creates a collage of projected images on the four walls of the big room that invites us to make a halt and start dreaming.…
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Dance of Death
My usual order of confronting a visual art object: first I look and, in this case at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, I see a collection of hanging light bulbs. If the work permits it I walk around it and try to make sense of what I see. Then I read the legend on the wall, often an…
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The Annunciation
The mysterious moment when Maria is informed that she is chosen to carry the son of God inside her womb and to bring him into the world, has inspired many a painter to exceptional works of art. All great painters of the Renaissance will have an ‘Annunciazione’ to their name. A very beautiful example is the…
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Holland in Kochi
One of the first things I saw at the 3rd edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale was a little painting of a Dutch landscape. Holland in Kochi! I immediately felt at home again. Daniele Galliano, an Italian artist, likes combing flea markets in search of paintings by anonymous Sunday painters. He dusts them off and then…
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Ambrosia
According to one creation myth of ancient Mesopotamia, the gods created humankind because they were fed up of having to look after their own food. Yes, gods also need food to survive, and they want man to provide it. As we can see here, man, religious man, still acquits himself faithfully of his task. This…
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The joy of sex …
… is of all time. This lovely scene was immortalized in stone 1000 years ago. It is part of hundreds of erotic sculptures that adorn the ancient temples of Khajuraho (India), a Unesco World Heritage Site. Rightly so! Photo of the week: Lakshmana temple, c. 1000 AD, Khajuraho, India 2007
καιρός remembered 