"Imagine a tiny state that is increasingly caught in the tides of ideological poverty, administrative corruption and cultural rot still managing to come up with a grand show of art. I'm sure somewhere in us Malayalis there is a streak of goodness and positivity left," he said after visiting a major venue of the 2nd edition of KMB, beginning on December 12.
The KMB is virtually a "rebroadcast" to the art circuit across continents that little Kerala "can sustain a revolutionary art movement in the midst of religious revivalists, power brokers, fortune hunters and pleasure seekers", the 69-year-old litterateur-activist noted at the end of a two-hour tour of installations around Aspinwall House in Fort Kochi.
"The biennale has facilitated people in my state-and India-to realise that art is not just about paintings and sculptures," he noted. "One more biennale, and Keralites get an excellent feel of global art movement of our times; it can then get habitual."
While on his visit to the galleries that are readying up for the 108-day extravaganza featuring works of 94 artists, Zacharia met internationally-acclaimed painter-critic Gulammohamed Sheikh from Gujarat.