Behind the Frame

While gallerists in India have doubled as curators for long,now artists are actively taking on the onus. And unlike earlier,they are not just involved with curating their own work. Currently on at Reykjavik Art Museum,Iceland,is the exhibition titled Transformations which has been curated by Mumbai-based artist Shilpa Gupta. Till a few days back,the travelling exhibition formed part of the exhibition,Indian Highway,at Herning Museum of Contemporary Art,Denmark,where it shared space with another curatorial project titled,On the Road to the Next Milestone. The latter was curated by Bose Krishnamachari,who was also the guest curator at ARCO Madrid 2009. Incidentally,Krishnamachari has emerged as one of India’s best-known artist-curators,along with Vivan Sundaram.

If Subodh Gupta promoted artists from hometown Bihar in an exhibition at Project 88,Mumbai,in 2009,in January Jagannath Panda curated a public art and site specific workshop at BK College of Art and Crafts,Bhubaneswar. “There is a lot of contextualisation involved in curating,” points out artist Vishal K Dar,as he put his work at Gallery Espace for the show titled BROWNation that opens today. “In case of a solo it becomes that much more important to have a perfect understanding between the artist and the curator,” says Dar,a trained architect. His earlier assignments include visualisation of Binod Bihari Mukherjee retrospective at National Gallery of Modern Art and Satish Gujral’s solo at Rabindra Bhavan.

“In India we do not have many courses specialising in curating. An artist is familiar with art history. In fact an artist working as a curator can spring several surprises in terms of the quality of work that is produced,” says Siddhartha Tagore,director of Art Konsult gallery,who had artist Farhad Hussain curate a group show Untitled 2010 last month. This comprised the work of 18 artists from Baroda and Delhi.

The role calls for a balancing act. “One finds time if you are passionate enough. Curating allows one to use the language of various artists to put across a message,” says Gupta,whose first project as curator was Aar Paar,along with Huma Mulji. In 2005 she curated an exhibition of Asian artists at the World Social Forum,Brazil. 

The attempt might not always be successful though. “It works as a one-off assignment. Else,it might affect the artist’s own practice,” says Tagore. Parul Vadehra,director of Vadehra Art Gallery,however,differs. She says,“Curating could be a parallel exercise for artists.” Credited with curating three exhibitions in the past,Pushkale adds,“An artist should curate only if he has something to contribute.” Next week he packs his bags for Perth. “I hope it is appreciated,” he adds.

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