Anish Kapoor visits KMB

Describing art as the "highest form of human activity", distinguished sculptor Anish Kapoor contended that artists and art organisations need to be unapologetic about what art can do.

He noted the importance of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB) in this regard.

"The fact is, art is a little esoteric and it is a bit complicated to understand language in which it is spoken. But the only way you can learn the language, like any other, is to have contact with it."

"What the Biennale is doing is so important since many of the visitors here would not have been to an art exhibition before. It has a huge social agenda as well as an artistic one," Kapoor said.
 

The hugely influential Mumbai-born British artist was on a private visit over the past few days to the ongoing third edition of India's only Biennale - his first time back since participating as an artist in KMB 2014.

He took tours of the venues in Fort Kochi and Mattancherry.

Noting that India had a "poor history of making contemporary culture available and accessible to the people", he said "The great thing about the Biennale is that it is not a museum space. Art has a different ethos. It has other ambitions."

It is wonderful to see an art event of international standard with interesting ambitions regarding the local population and their participation," he said.

This was important, Kapoor said, because with a history of involvement comes a culture of inquiry.

"We have to encourage that because we want creative citizens, not passive ones. I hope the Biennale will give rise to a new generation, or generations, of artists who will remember having seen something here that surprised them and take the risk of getting into art," he said.

"Art is a risk - an economic risk, even a social and aesthetic risk. It falls on the Kochi Biennale Foundation and cultural organisations to support and celebrate that spirit of risk-taking, the excitement of possibility and encourage activities on an even bigger-scale," Kapoor said.