The second edition of the Kochi Muziris Biennale, featuring works of 94 artists from around the globe, was today formally inaugurated by Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy.
Speaking at the event, Chandy said, "Kerala has of late become a major gateway of art for the whole world."
Chandy declared open the biennale at Fort Kochi's Parade Ground after a two hour 'Pandi Melam', ethnic ensemble, featuring 305 artists on chenda (drum) besides cymbals, pipes and horns, providing a memorable experience for the spectators.
Chenda maestro Peruvanam Kuttan Marar, a Padma Shri awardee, who led the melam, said it is only at central Kerala's famed annual 'Thrissur Pooram' festival that he has by far led an orchestra of nearly this size.
"Even at the Ilanjithara Melam, the total number of participants doesn't generally cross 300," the 61-year-old drummer gushed, hailing KMB '14 for giving chenda melam a platform ahead of a major contemporary art festival.
The 108-day art extravaganza, which will be on till March
next year, has been curated by Mumbai based artist Jitish Kallat and features gigantic as well as tiny works of site-specific art across genres such as installation, painting and sculpture at the seaside complexes that had functioned as storage houses.
A Student's Biennale, which will run parallel to the Kochi
Muziris biennale, will open tormorrow. It is being held to create an alternative platform for students from Government-run art colleges in India to reflect upon their art practices and exhibit their works to a global audience.
Besides, a children's biennale is also being organised to
engage young learners and initiate them into art appreciation and art making, the organisers said. An exhbition of selected works of Clint Edmund Thomas, the child prodigy who created 25,000 drawings and paintings in his short life span of seven years, is being organised in a gallery at Mattancherry.
The Biennale organisers have brought out a 250-page bilingual guide that gives a complete digest of the 100 main exhibits spread across eight venues of the biennale in the city.
Works of a host of internationally respected artists like
Adrian Paci, Mona Hatoum, Martin Creed and Gulam Mohammed Sheikh are among those on display.
