Artist and curator Jitish Kallat will share the themes and curatorial ideas behind Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2014 with artists, curators, scholars and administrators at several prestigious art institutions in the United States from this month-end.
Kallat's US trip is part of a popularisation drive for the upcoming Kochi Biennale, in which 95 artists from about 30 countries will showcase their work. The 108-day event opens Dec 12.
According to the organisers of the biennale, Kallat has been invited to deliver a talk at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Asian Contemporary Art Week, New York, where he will present the themes and curatorial ideas behind the exhibition "Whorled Explorations".
At the Museum of Modern art in New York, he will speak to C-MAP Asia curatorial group in an internal dialogue between senior staff and curators.
Incidentally at the upcoming biennale, almost 70 per cent of the exhibits are new works created as a result of extended dialogues in the course of which several artists have made visits to Kochi to see the sites where the biennale will unfold.
Darielle Mason, the Stella Kramrisch Curator of Indian and Himalayan Art and head of the Department of South Asian Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, said Kallat as an artist and as a curator, bears witness to the reality that contemporary art is not the sole preserve of Europe and the United States.
"He is one of India's hottest artists working today and brings us a new frame of reference to rethink our world and ourselves. It's incredibly rewarding to be able to introduce to Philadelphia some of the most powerful voices in South Asia's artistic panorama. The opportunity to hear his thoughts just a month before the biennale opens is a rare treat," said Mason.