The moment K.C. Joseph, minister for rural development, planning & culture of the Government of Kerala, announced the new curator for the third edition of the Kochi Muziris Biennale, a hall full of heads turned towards the door. Sudarshan Shetty entered hurriedly, a ponnada was wrapped on his shoulders, when he greeted the dignitaries and the audience and took his place on stage. He brought a piece of paper with him as he walked towards the mike and claimed he was a tad nervous. He thought it would be better to read out his little speech. “It’s only half a page,” he said. With those five words, he managed to convey his modesty and a quiet sense of humour.
Riyas Komu and Bose Krishnamachari, founders of the Kochi Biennale, had spoken to him a week ago about curating the 2016 edition. “I said yes, of course,” says the man who is known for his enigmatic sculptural installations. Riyas introduces him as a man who “has carved a niche for himself as his generation’s most innovative conceptual artist in India.” As he is introduced, the organisers project his works, an intriguing combination of the representational and the abstract — ‘Every broken moment, piece by piece’, ‘Who must write these lines’ and ‘Listen outside this house’ are some of them.
Two-and-a-half years ago, he met Bose and Riyas in their new avatar as curators of the first Biennale in India. Those were difficult times, the two had to go through many hurdles to make it what it is today. From the 15,000 sq ft they first got, to the four-and-a-half-lakh sq ft they developed it into, from the first visitors to the Biennale they have nearly a million visitors by the end of the second edition. As M.A. Baby, MLA, who was there when the Kochi Muziris Biennale was founded, would say, “We were inspired by Albert Einstein’s line, ‘Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds’.”
But those challenges are not there anymore. By the end of 2014, when it was time for the second edition, everyone had wholeheartedly welcomed the Biennale into Kochi, spread over the eight venues and public spaces. That’s where Sudarshan’s job becomes an important one. There has been a precedent set, and many hurdles crossed to reach here. “The fear comes only when I compare myself to the first two curators, but I shall overcome that soon,” he says with a laugh, sitting next to Riyas. “And my homework began yesterday.”
There is the comfort that Kochi has always been closeby. “I am from Mangalore, so I am close. My first art exhibition here was more than 10 years ago for a show by Bose, where Riyas and I participated. In art school, we have watched a lot of films from Kerala, and I am very fond of John Abraham. His film Amma Ariyan, and then there’s Adoor Gopalakrishnan, one of my heroes, sitting here in front of me.”
He put up his work for the first Biennale and attended the second. But the third is of course going to bring him a lot more responsibility. Sudarshan Shetty will be travelling between his Mumbai studio and the Kochi Biennale office and of course, to many cities of the world to meet artists.
