A seminar around the Practice of K. P. Krishnakumar and the Kerala Radical Group
Saturday, 16 January 2010 / 10:30 – 17:30
Organised by the Office of Contemporary Art Norway, and CoLab Art & Architecture in cooperation with the School of Art & Aesthetics, JNU
School of Art & Aesthetics, JNU
New Delhi, India
http://www.jnu.ac.in/saa/
SPEAKERSThe analysis of the Kerala Radical Group and its legacy will provide the basis for a wider reassessment and critical reappraisal of particular moments and movements in recent art history. Further, the seminar will look at contemporary artists’ practices and use case studies to understand the role of aesthetic strategies in addressing the political. During the seminar there will be a display of material relating to K. P. Krishnakumar in the gallery at the School of Art and Aesthetics courtesy of the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp (MuHKA), Belgium.
About the speakers
Will Bradley is an art critic and curator based in Oslo. His publications include the books Art and Social Change: A Critical Reader (editor, Tate Publishing and Afterall Books, 2007), Self-Organisation / Counter-economic Strategies (co-editor, Sternberg Press, 2007) and the essays ‘The New New Monuments’ (Metropolis M, 2008) and ‘Dreaming of Dreaming’ (for the ‘Dream Politics’ edition of UKS Forum, 2009). He has curated many exhibitions, including ‘Forms of Resistance’ (Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, 2007, with Charles Esche and Phillip van den Bossche) and ‘Radical Software’, on the underground influences on Open Source culture (Wattis Institute, San Francisco, 2006).
Anita Dube is an artist based in Delhi. Initially trained as an art historian and critic, Dube creates works with a conceptual language that valorises the sculptural fragment as a bearer of personal and social memory, history, mythology, and phenomenological experience. Employing a variety of found objects drawn from the realms of the industrial (foam, plastic, wire), craft (thread, beads, velvet), the body (dentures, bone), and the readymade (ceramic eyes), Dube investigates a very human concern with both personal and societal loss and regeneration. Dube was a member of the Kerala Radical Group. She is the author of the Manifesto Questions & Dialogue, written in 1987.
Gavin Jantjes is a curator for International Contemporary Art at The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo. Jantjes has been a member of the Arts Council of Great Britain, an advisor for the Tate Gallery in London and the artistic director of the Henie-Onstad Kunstsenter in Oslo. His works are displayed in public and private collections such as the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Arts Council of Great Britain, London; Wolverhampton City Art Gallery, Great Britain; Coventry City Museum and the National Museum of African Art at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., USA. Jantjes is currently spearheading ‘Visual Century’, a multimedia project that aims to promote a critical reappraisal of South African Art History.
Amar Kanwar is an artist and filmmaker based in New Delhi. Emerging from the Indian sub continent, his films are complex, contemporary narratives that connect intimate personal spheres of existence to larger social political processes. His work maps a journey of exploration revealing our relationship with the politics of power, violence, sexuality and justice. Recent solo exhibitions have been at the Stediljk Museum, Amsterdam and the Haus der Kunst, Munich. He has participated in Documenta 11 and documenta 12 in Kassel, Germany and is also the recipient of the 1st Edvard Munch Award for Contemporary Art, Norway and an Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts, Maine College of Art, USA. His films are also shown at film festivals and he has received several awards like the Golden Gate Award, San Francisco International Film Festival, the Golden Conch, Mumbai International Film Festival, Jury’s Award, Film South Asia, Nepal.
About the cooperation between OCA and CoLab in ‘Reflections on Indian Modernism’
This seminar is organised by OCA by Suman Gopinath and Grant Watson, guest curators for a wider project entitled ‘Reflections on Indian Modernism’s. The project explores the historical roots of modernism within visual art in India through a series of seminars, publications and exhibitions. ‘Questions & Dialogue – A Radical Manifesto’ follows ‘Nasreen Mohammedi’ – a seminar that took place in Delhi in January 2009. This resulted in ‘Nasreen Mohammedi: Notes’, a solo exhibition dedicated to the artist initiated and exhibited at OCA in March 2009 and currently on tour organized by OCA to Milton Keynes Gallery, UK, Lunds Konsthall, Sweden and Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland. ‘Reflections on Indian Modernism’ is supported by OCA’s designation of 03–funds* from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Further support is provided by the Norwegian Embassy in Delhi by way of hospitality.
*The purpose of the 03–funds is to further develop cooperation and professional networking between OCA and the constituency of artists, independent cultural producers and organisations located in or associated to such countries. This includes but is not limited to ‘professional research visits by cultural producers, artists, and curators’, ‘short-term residencies for cultural producers and artists’, ‘the development of seminars, conferences, art projects, workshops, etc. that focus on the further development of professional exchange and networking between and among countries’, and ‘project development (and pilot projects) on an international scale.’
This seminar is free and open to the public. For more information please contact Marthe Tveitan at at [email protected]
