what makes art why is art important when
I say art what are the first images that
come to your mind the Mona Lisa Vincent
van Gogh Raja Ravi Verma why is this art
or are the stereotypes that we recognize
as art as all of you were great artists
as children so was i but you might
remember that as the years passed you
started becoming scared of drawing
painting you thought your work was not
as good as Leonardo why and where does
this fear come from why is it that as
children we see art with a sense of
freedom but as we become adults we fall
into stereotypes after school I went on
to studying art in a historical
institution soaked with colonial
training methods of teaching art I was
constantly haunted by the question of
what is good art and what is bad art but
I soon realized I was asking the wrong
questions the question then became what
can art to do for you for me this is a
collection of bottled sweat how does
this become art the following are art
works done by a group of student artists
from the garment College of Fine Arts
Chennai and Kumbakonam they came
together as a collective to do this
exhibition called archiving labor I
curated this exhibition for the students
Biennale 2016-17 so the students came
together and bottled their sweat can
sweat be art yes it can a substance that
reminds you of a laboring body can
become an art object so what
contemporary art can do is to make you
rethink what you already know it can
challenge stereotypes of beauty in
this video piece was done by camel one
of the artists
the collective everyday he would take
the suburban train to college and he
made friends with sundar a blind man who
sells sweets on the trail for this video
he invited sundar to the college gave
him some clay so now we can see a part
in the bunch
mentioned in the video this is the first
time he was touching clay and he made a
sweet that he sells on the train so who
is a real artist is in soon they’re an
artist so when you see this video the
questions that come up or how do you
create art and absorb art is art only
for a visual is it only a stimulant for
a visual experience can it not be
experienced otherwise artist Sharon Raj
made a sound installation for this
exhibition hundreds of metal tools
hitting stones in a stone quarry
Sharon Rajas parents work in this quarry
and he grew up embodying the sound noise
became music the second sound piece that
Sharon Raj made for the exhibition was
called ope Oh Perry is a lamenting song
that’s usually sung when somebody in the
village dies he recorded an old woman
singing opera and presented it in the
exhibition so thinking of sound as art
cannot still not communicate can it not
express fabrication is an installation
from my recent exhibition called Things
Fall Apart
it is a long piece of fabric suspended
from the ceiling which sharp but very
fragile hooks the fabric has number of
stains adding up to the number of
average menstruating years multiplied by
the average number of times of
menstruation the inspiration for this
work was the mythical characters
character draupadi and that she was
disrobed when she was menstruating
so this long piece of fabric was devised
into a maze so the audience could walk
in get lost or move into isolation
momentarily so art in this piece is for
you to experience and not necessarily
confined to viewing Kara Walker a black
American artist built a massive
sculpture made of sugar a subtly tea or
the marvelous sugar baby was sculpted in
2014 in the Domino’s sugar factory
Brooklyn New York this was a thirty five
feet tall stereotype black woman the
factory was located in
nineteenth-century sugar cane storage
and refining facility as most places
this place thrived on slave labor so one
can say that the artist is paying homage
by making this grand shrine of this
figure to express or document the hidden
histories within this place this work of
her art has several powerful meanings
and particularly in the context of the
medium sugar has so much hidden history
objects and materials around us have
several meanings they have a history
they occupy a present and will haunt our
futures so in an artwork they come alive
with meaning and when we start looking
very closely they start revealing
themselves so what can art do art can
present itself as a trigger it is a
point of departure for new ideas it is
an experience that touches your being it
needs to speak to the entire self and
body it needs to question contemporary
conflicts being an artist curator
liberate Smee I can work within the
system and outside of it it opens
endless possibilities for me art can
read between lines it can work between
disciplines art is a tool to make you
free and not confine you to the
rigidities
of beauty frames or pedestals so when I
think of what art is here is what I
believe art is a significant document of
time dwelling with traces of contested
histories memories emotions and
relationships it’s constantly
reinventing itself to articulate hidden
stories art is not out of your reach it
is an invitation for you to engage with
it I believe it can stir up something
for each and every one of you just as
you had experienced it in your childhood
with innocence art should become a
significant part of our education it is
not exclusively for privileged
consumption it needs to be accessed
across divisions of Education we can
imbibe art not just as an extra subject
but the very basis of learning it can
give us the key to understanding
communication without language how do we
relate to the Mona Lisa beyond the fact
that it’s a popular icon why and how are
the lives of artists like Vincent van
Gogh and Raja Ravi Verma significant how
do we build a relationship with art and
artists and not merely exoticized them
beyond seeing art as an unreachable
object of desire can we begin to
demystify it thank you [Applause]
I say art what are the first images that
come to your mind the Mona Lisa Vincent
van Gogh Raja Ravi Verma why is this art
or are the stereotypes that we recognize
as art as all of you were great artists
as children so was i but you might
remember that as the years passed you
started becoming scared of drawing
painting you thought your work was not
as good as Leonardo why and where does
this fear come from why is it that as
children we see art with a sense of
freedom but as we become adults we fall
into stereotypes after school I went on
to studying art in a historical
institution soaked with colonial
training methods of teaching art I was
constantly haunted by the question of
what is good art and what is bad art but
I soon realized I was asking the wrong
questions the question then became what
can art to do for you for me this is a
collection of bottled sweat how does
this become art the following are art
works done by a group of student artists
from the garment College of Fine Arts
Chennai and Kumbakonam they came
together as a collective to do this
exhibition called archiving labor I
curated this exhibition for the students
Biennale 2016-17 so the students came
together and bottled their sweat can
sweat be art yes it can a substance that
reminds you of a laboring body can
become an art object so what
contemporary art can do is to make you
rethink what you already know it can
challenge stereotypes of beauty in
this video piece was done by camel one
of the artists
the collective everyday he would take
the suburban train to college and he
made friends with sundar a blind man who
sells sweets on the trail for this video
he invited sundar to the college gave
him some clay so now we can see a part
in the bunch
mentioned in the video this is the first
time he was touching clay and he made a
sweet that he sells on the train so who
is a real artist is in soon they’re an
artist so when you see this video the
questions that come up or how do you
create art and absorb art is art only
for a visual is it only a stimulant for
a visual experience can it not be
experienced otherwise artist Sharon Raj
made a sound installation for this
exhibition hundreds of metal tools
hitting stones in a stone quarry
Sharon Rajas parents work in this quarry
and he grew up embodying the sound noise
became music the second sound piece that
Sharon Raj made for the exhibition was
called ope Oh Perry is a lamenting song
that’s usually sung when somebody in the
village dies he recorded an old woman
singing opera and presented it in the
exhibition so thinking of sound as art
cannot still not communicate can it not
express fabrication is an installation
from my recent exhibition called Things
Fall Apart
it is a long piece of fabric suspended
from the ceiling which sharp but very
fragile hooks the fabric has number of
stains adding up to the number of
average menstruating years multiplied by
the average number of times of
menstruation the inspiration for this
work was the mythical characters
character draupadi and that she was
disrobed when she was menstruating
so this long piece of fabric was devised
into a maze so the audience could walk
in get lost or move into isolation
momentarily so art in this piece is for
you to experience and not necessarily
confined to viewing Kara Walker a black
American artist built a massive
sculpture made of sugar a subtly tea or
the marvelous sugar baby was sculpted in
2014 in the Domino’s sugar factory
Brooklyn New York this was a thirty five
feet tall stereotype black woman the
factory was located in
nineteenth-century sugar cane storage
and refining facility as most places
this place thrived on slave labor so one
can say that the artist is paying homage
by making this grand shrine of this
figure to express or document the hidden
histories within this place this work of
her art has several powerful meanings
and particularly in the context of the
medium sugar has so much hidden history
objects and materials around us have
several meanings they have a history
they occupy a present and will haunt our
futures so in an artwork they come alive
with meaning and when we start looking
very closely they start revealing
themselves so what can art do art can
present itself as a trigger it is a
point of departure for new ideas it is
an experience that touches your being it
needs to speak to the entire self and
body it needs to question contemporary
conflicts being an artist curator
liberate Smee I can work within the
system and outside of it it opens
endless possibilities for me art can
read between lines it can work between
disciplines art is a tool to make you
free and not confine you to the
rigidities
of beauty frames or pedestals so when I
think of what art is here is what I
believe art is a significant document of
time dwelling with traces of contested
histories memories emotions and
relationships it’s constantly
reinventing itself to articulate hidden
stories art is not out of your reach it
is an invitation for you to engage with
it I believe it can stir up something
for each and every one of you just as
you had experienced it in your childhood
with innocence art should become a
significant part of our education it is
not exclusively for privileged
consumption it needs to be accessed
across divisions of Education we can
imbibe art not just as an extra subject
but the very basis of learning it can
give us the key to understanding
communication without language how do we
relate to the Mona Lisa beyond the fact
that it’s a popular icon why and how are
the lives of artists like Vincent van
Gogh and Raja Ravi Verma significant how
do we build a relationship with art and
artists and not merely exoticized them
beyond seeing art as an unreachable
object of desire can we begin to
demystify it thank you [Applause]
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