India does not have a national pavilion at the ongoing edition of the Venice Biennale, but there is a substantial presence of Indian art and artists at the prestigious event helmed by its first Latin American curator Adriano Pedrosa.
The representation extends from the central pavilion at Giardini and Arsenale, to national pavilions managed by respective countries, collateral exhibitions and independent exhibitions in the canal city coinciding with the biennale. Here is what is on view:
The central showcase
Meant to encourage inclusivity, Pedrosa’s central exhibition themed around ‘Foreigners Everywhere’ promotes diversity and plurality. As part of the showcase he has works of seven Indian modernists. Representing the late SH Raza is the 1986 acrylic Offrande, painted in geometric patterns that defined his oeuvre in the latter years.
Also part of the exhibition is his fellow Progressive Artists’ Group member FN Souza’s 1956 untitled canvas with male figures, from the Jane and Kito de Boer Collection. Ram Kumar’s 1953 canvas belongs to the period before he delved into abstraction.
Titled Women, it depicts four women comforting each other. If Jamini Roy is being represented with a depiction of Lord Krishna, B Prabha is debuting at the biennale with the canvas Waiting that has a partially covered profile of a woman giving an impression of seclusion.
Also making his debut at the biennale is Bhupen Khakhar’s Fishermen in Goa (1985) that delves into homosexuality.
Setting the record for highest price achieved by an Indian artist last year, Amrita Sher-Gil is being represented with Head of a Girl. Painted in her late style, the portrait of a young girl has her forehead covered with fringes, coming right above her almond-shaped eyes.
Also on invitation by Pedrosa, textile artist Monika Correa and Aravani Art Project — a trans-women and cis-women led art collective — make their first appearance at the biennale. Correa’s No Moon Tonight (1974) with vertical weaves draws from nature to present an interplay of light and dark.
Aravani Art Project’s monumental mural in bright colours, featuring trans bodies, marks the 10th anniversary of the Supreme Court verdict that gave legal recognition to the transgender community.
Husain as an immersive
One of the first artists from India to have participated at the Venice Biennale in 1955, MF Husain has an exhibition and an immersive dedicated to him in Venice. Organised by the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art and drawing from its collection, the immersive titled ‘The Rooted Nomad’, designed by Visioni Immersive Emotions, refers to nearly 160 works by Husain.
The exhibition that leads to it, meanwhile, includes Husain’s photographs, poems, letters, toys and iconic paintings such as Yatra (1955), The Pull (1952), Blue Ganges (1966) and Karbala (1990).
Coming together of arts
Presented as a collateral, ‘Cosmic Garden’ has paintings and sculptures by artist-couple Madhvi Parekh and Manu Parekh juxtaposed with hand embroidered renditions of their works created by the Chanakya School of Craft and its creative director Karishma Swali.
Meant to dismantle hierarchies between arts and pay tribute to feminine power, the theme explores myths, crafts and Vedic philosophy. Known to blend the modern and the traditional, while Madhvi’s works are influenced by folk traditions and her growing up years in Gujarat, Manu is known for his powerful landscapes and abstracts that incorporate Indian cultural traditions with aspects of Western modernism and abstract expressionism.
“We tend to undermine craft and mediums such as embroidery in India — by bringing these on the world stage, this is also an assertion on how all arts are interlinked,” notes Manu.
Also on view
Bringing together speech and sculpture, Shilpa Gupta’s Listening Air (2019-2022) comprises suspended microphones-turned-speakers that orbit in the exhibition space, broadcasting voices of dissent that have been suppressed through history and geographies.
The work is now showing as part of the collateral event titled ‘From Ukraine: Dare to Dream’ at the Palazzo Contarini Polignac.
Helsinki-based Vidha Saumya’s works are showing at the Finland Pavilion as part of the showcase ‘The pleasures we choose’. The graduate from Mumbai’s Sir JJ School of Art is showing a distinct body of work, including multi-panel ballpoint pen drawings on silk cloth depicting people in queues, sculptures portraying trash found on pavements and textile with cross-stitch embroidery.
Showing as part of ‘Personal Structures’ 2024, an exhibition organised by the European Cultural Centre, meanwhile, is sculptor Sonal Ambani’s stainless steel installation Slings & Arrows of Outrageous Fortune, and Delhi-based Paresh Maity’s Genesis — a 500-kg 120-inch bronze pendulum that stands an a metaphor for life and the balance it necessitates.
