The Kochi-Muziris Biennale, cofounded by Krishnamachari and fellow artist Riyas Komu, has become an increasingly important blueprint for any art event rooted in the realities of a locality yet international in ambition and scope. Recent #MeToo allegations against Komu (posted on anonymous Instagram account @herdsceneand), however, have taken something of the shine off. Komu swiftly stood down from his post as secretary of the Kochi Biennale Foundation pending an investigation, and Dube, the biennial’s first woman curator (of this December’s fourth iteration), issued a statement saying, ‘I take the issue of women’s empowerment… seriously. It informs my curatorial deliberations and I try to practice what I preach’, while at the same time suggesting that the biennial itself was undergoing a ‘process of structural change’. That Kerala has experienced its worst flooding (483 recorded deaths) in almost a century may also have extended the biennial’s focus beyond Dube’s stated ambition to examine resistance to the influence of capital and spectacle on contemporary culture.
Advertisement
Power 100
Most influential people in 2018 in the contemporary artworld
80

Bose Krishnamachari & Anita Dube
Artist - Artist-founder and curator of India’s Kochi-Muziris Biennale
80 in 2018
- 201880
- 201586
- 2014
- 2013
- 2012
- 2011
- 2010
- 2009
- 2008
- 2007

Related articles
Advertisement
Advertisement