Beauties from the Venice Biennale

Text by Huzan Tata. Images courtesy Venice Biennale.

Hitch a gondola to Italy and catch these Indian artists at the Venice Biennale 2015

European sojourns are usually incomplete without a dose of the arts. And this year, one of the continent’s biggest art shows, the Venice Biennale, promises a great display. Now in its 56^th year, the art biennale features several events and exhibitions, with some artists from the Indian subcontinent too.

Highlights:

My East is Your West This is one for the history books. Featuring installations by Indian artist Shilpa Gupta and Pakistan’s Rashid Rana, the exhibit is commissioned by the Gujral Foundation. Rana’s creation is spread across five rooms, ‘surveying the conception of presence, temporality and location’. Gupta’s mixed media work is the result of four years of research in the India-Bangladesh borderlands, which she portrays through her art.

All The World’s Futures Kolkata’s Experimenter gallery brings to the Biennale a few artists’ works, that are a part of the main exhibition, All The World’s Futures curated by Nigerian art expert Okwui Enwezor. Naeem Mohaiemen and Raqs Media Collective’s film and installation respectively, are on display for art lovers to learn from and explore. Other Indian creations are an installation by Prasad Shetty & Rupali Gupte, and artworks by Madhusudhanan.

National Pavilion of Iran Though the name says Iran, it’s not just the West Asian country’s artistic endevours that are being exhibited here. Experimenter’s Bani Abidi and The Guild’s Riyas Komu and T V Santhosh’s proud creations are included in the line-up of the Iranian show, The Great Game, curated by Marco Meneguzzo and Mazdak Faiznia.

The 56th Venice Biennale is on display at various locations in Venice, Italy until November 22, 2015. Visit www.labiennale.org for the complete schedule.