Counteracting the commonly

Bose Krishnamachari continues to challenge conventional concepts of visual art practices in his ballsy style.

Socialites mill about the Museum Art Gallery at the opening of LaVA, sipping their wine next to rows of choice DVDs and books that reference various visual art practices.

They casually pick up a title, and put it down just as thoughtlessly, exhibiting virtually no recognition of inestimable value of the knowledge in their midst. A few days later, it's a relief to find the gallery abuzz with visitors making use of the exhaustive collection.

Bose Krishnamachari is beginning to be seen as a man of largesse. Last year, Double Enders, a show, saw him promote the scattered legion of Malayali artists in an attempt to place the little-knowns side by side with the senior and the identifiable.

And LaVA certainly merits appreciation for his philanthropy. It's never easy to share 10 years' worth of a library collection with strangers, with the threat of pilferage, not to mention dog-ears!

Krishnamachari credits that spirit of giving to the support he received when he arrived in Mumbai from Kerala in the mid-'90s to study fine art at the JJ School of Arts. "I arrived with nothing more than an ability to create," he says.

His talent was almost immediately recognised by art patrons who offered unwavering succour. But, as if in direct subversion to the blue-eyed boy-boy image he was quick to develop, he got suspended midway through his master's degree for criticising the functioning of the institution.

Curiously, AmUseuM, a collaborative installation show, that immediately followed the suspension, was a runaway success. Bose later went to complete his MFA at Goldsmith's College of Art on a Charles Wallace scholarship.

Krishnamachari says he relies on his monetary successes for pet projects like LaVA, which incidentally will cover six cities over seven months.

With a focus on the last 50 years in design, photography, art and architecture, LaVA deliberately excludes literature and film easily accessible in the marketplace, and challenges the inadequacies of existing institutions.

"This installation for me is an artistic intervention. However, it isn't a problem if others see it as just a library."

As he does with most shows, Krishnamachari is once again challenging traditional notions of conceptual art practice. "Why is it that in India, a painter is only interested in painting, and a sculptor only interested in sculpting?" he asks.

"I think it is range that defines artistic success, not quality, which is totally relative," he continues, himself having worked comfortably in a variety of media like painting and photography, and having painted in an abstract as well as figurative mode.

He has repeatedly organised unorthodox art shows, like De-curating (2003), when he paid homage to 94 living contemporary Indian artists through realistic portraiture, in an age where realistic drawing is outdated, and Persistence of Memory (1996) where he installed an archive of photos, letters and memoirs of 26 poets, attempting to document "the making of a poet".

In earlier shows, he explored the idea of archiving and museumisation, using found objects like second-hand books and tiffin boxes.

Krishnamachari's works, are always an undertaking of architectural exploration and infrastructure design. "I take on the curatorship of my shows. Most curators in India are always from literature backgrounds, they look for concepts and ideas, but the actual artistic practice is more important than theory."

But do his projects, almost always epic in proportion and ambition, keep him away from creating artwork that actually sells? "I don't think of anything as sellable, whether a portrait or a mummyfied second-hand book. If my work finds a buyer, that's fine," he shrugs.

Next up is a show in Lille (France) called 'Bombay - maximum city' "" a 40 foot long installation of 108 tiffin boxes, fitted with DVD screens showcasing visuals from Mumbai.

He explains, "The installation is meant to showcase the lack of space in the city "" between hedonism and low life, death and life. There are no grey scales, everything's extreme. That's why I use extreme colours or extreme minimalism."

"I am a bit extreme myself," adds the self-confessed Andy Warhol fan. "I intend to celebrate my life with the same passion that Warhol did."

It's hard to relate this self-possessed, reticent Malayali with extreme expression. But that's Krishnamachari for you, a man who evades definition and counteracts commonly-held assumption.

Correction: In the story titled 'To the old and the new' dated Sept 02, Baiju Parthan's latest show Source Code was incorrectly attributed to Sakshi Art Gallery. The show will actually open at Museum Gallery, Mumbai on September 12, and continue at Art Musings from September 18.