Venu Vasudevan appointed chairperson of Kochi Biennale Foundation
India's first biennale of international contemporary art, the event that had its inaugural edition in December 2012 has been grappling with challenges in recent years.
Venu Vasudevan has been appointed chairperson of the Board of Trustees of Kochi Biennale Foundation. (KBF) Former Chief Secretary to the Government of Kerala and former Director General of the National Museum in Delhi, Venu Vasudevan, has been appointed chairperson of the Board of Trustees of Kochi Biennale Foundation. “He has been associated with the biennale since the very beginning and we are extremely happy that he will now be part of the organisation. Aware of the achievements of the biennale, he is most capable of taking it forward from here,” stated Bose Krishnamachari, president of Kochi Biennale Foundation (KBF).
India’s first biennale of international contemporary art, the event that had its inaugural edition in December 2012 has been grappling with challenges in recent years.
Postponed a day before it was to open its fifth edition in 2022, the curator for the next edition — which was to tentatively open in December 2024 — has still not been announced. According to sources, it is unlikely that a full-fledged biennale will be held this year because of financial constraints and logistical issues.
One of India’s biggest and most popular art events, the biennale took birth in 2010 at the behest of then Kerala culture minister M A Baby, and with Kerala-born artists Riyas Komu and Krishnamachari at the helm. While the first edition of the biennale was curated by the duo, in the subsequent years the biennale has seen artist-curators such as Jitish Kallat (2014-15), Sudarshan Shetty (2016-17), Anita Dube (2018-19) and Shubigi Rao (2022-23).
Tasneem Zakaria Mehta, founding trustee and current adviser to the biennale, and honorary director and managing trustee of Bhau Daji Lad Museum, notes, “What the KMB has managed to achieve is incredible. It is an amazing platform for Indian art, and that’s how it is being recognised across the world… There were some problems and issues with the last edition and we have resolved many of them and are working on the others. We have recovered from what happened and are looking forward to the next edition.”
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