In Sao Paolo, fighting jet lag with a walk on the streets, and coming back to read. An read what I had imagined a connection. A drink on a street side cafe had me reminisce a drink with Sachin W. Bonde in Panjim, followed by driving around south Goa with Loretti Pinto looking at churches figuring out the inquisition and the role artists played in building churches. One of the first Indian migrants to Goa were artists, masons and architects invited from Goa to come build churches, homes and state buildings, as they knew how to work on the tropical climate and laterite soil. Today I speak at a panel of the Sao Paolo Biennale, on the need of institutions, I will speak about the idea of despite the institution, Zasha Colah and me saw the lack of space within them to give artists such as Prabhakar Pachpute a voice. And today Prabhakar Pachpute creates a large mural in an Oscar Niemeyer pavilion for the biennial on a wall that centres the intertwining floors. Niemeyer and his inspiration Le Corbusier built buildings that would aide in making institutions more fluid enabling that space a departure from the Lourvre, where vetting an artist took the chicanery of patronship, politics and the market, Corbu envisioned a modern India that really heard itself in the large in the parliament halls, a bureaucracy that shunned the bureau, rather invited the folk in. But the state and corporate have come today to inhabit similar architectural spaces, and their bureau of exchange does not allow complexities, for they adapt a complex system of inclusion. Grant Watson Charles Esche & Galit Eilat were the many firsts that saw the limitation of that institution inviting Prabhakar to enter a space that various cultural door keepers would not allow. Clark House Initiative is often asked about our relationship to the more formal aspects of the institution, the main stream, the market, the popular. We see ourselves inhabiting all these spaces, we are not the alternative, if the alternative means on the margin or merely experimental. We are incidental, we put deep convictions into our work and work deep within institutions, as I write this Krishan Reddys exhibition movies to another state Lalit Kala Akademi from Chennai to Bhubhaneshwar, many of members participate in state scholarships, exhibitions, give tours and workshops in state schools, it is an institutional space which we love to inhabit. But the Lalit Kala Akademis , Kala Parishads, were our mainstream and still are the mainstream. Clark House began also at the JJ School of Art, today many Clark House exist - who share our name and have a sense of ownership over Clark House in many places, Nikumbh Prasad & Avinash Motghare were part of a print biennale as the same time as Sao Paolo happened, Naresh Kumar has almost independently led Clark House in Delhi and now recreates it in Paris with Kemi Bassene Caecilia Tripp Tatiana Pozzo Di Borgo& Akshay Rathore, Jamboy Lasse Oc Peter Kærgaard Andersen have been plotting and planning residencies, a sleeper cell that arises once in a while of Simon Liddiment, Mark Coombs Liz Ballard and Harriet Pearson keep fort in a country that we are not often allowed in, Judy Blum aka Judith Reddy holds forth as the grande damme of the union in New York, she has more energy than any one of us and has been the informer of almost three exhibitions since Kadist Art Foundation residency. Safran Peter is Director at large in Fort Kochi, along with Sattik Bhattacharya who is actually the artistic director AT LARGE/ Rupali Patil Nikhil Raunak and Sachin Bonde have been doing a better job at directing in conversation with Zasha than I ever I got to do, Im so happy they relieved me from my responsibilities. Yogesh Barve has begun to write poems in Indonesia much to my chagrin and each time I get to Clark House I cant imagine not have Poonam Jain around and no one more inspires me than Amol K Patil. Chinchu Kumar Sreekandan inacts the role of the Oscar and Corbu I think we need to be confronted each time, and Aniruddha Barua is the new restless being to be around as is the patient and silent Shinobu Mikami. Luingamla Kashanremains our mentor as does Htein Lin & Sawangwongse Yawnghwe No day goes without Janek Simon ignoring me or Zied Ben Romdhane sending me a length of choicest Tunisian arab abuse - my only inspiration. While we are inspired on a whole by Luingamla Kashan Tushar Joag Nalini Malani Sharmila Samant Prajakta Potnis Shuddhabrata Sengupta Justin Ponmany Abhijeet Tamhane Htein Lin Haegue Yang Sawangwongse Yawnghwe & CAMP Sawang and dont exist without our collaborators Emilie Villez, Shireen Gandhy Cosmin Costinas Qinyi Lim Serena Trinchero Afrikadaa Sasha Gora Doran Schmaal Malini Tolani Gulrajani Prateek and our best friend Chenaram Raja
Posted on: Sun, 12 Oct 2014 07:36:13 +0000
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