Mr. Hardeep Singh Brar, President & CEO, BMW Group India said, “The BMW Group India is proud to continue its partnership of the sixth edition of Kochi-Muziris Biennale, a platform that celebrates creativity, dialogue and new perspectives. Art has the power to inspire progressive thinking, and this partnership reflects our belief in innovation that moves both people and culture forward. The Biennale’s spirit of openness and exploration mirrors, BMWs philosophy of redefining possibility, and we are delighted to be a part of a movement that enriches India’s cultural landscape.”
The exhibition, the largest contemporary art biennale in South Asia and the first of its kind in India, unfolds across 29 venues in Fort Kochi, Mattancherry, Willingdon Islands and Ernakulam. It sits in conversation with a constellation of exhibitions, performances, and discursive programmes which are set in close dialogue with Kochi’s unique geographical, social and cultural ecology.
Embracing process as methodology, this edition places ‘freindship economies’ as the very scaffolding of the exhibition. The curatorial vision acknowledges bodies as a landscape of time, a vessel of labour, joy, and loss, and invites the visitors to think through ‘embodied histories of those that came before us and continue to live within us in the form of cells, stories and techniques.
BMW Group India Cultural Engagement
Since its inception, BMW India has participated in leading cultural engagements across the country. In 2007, two BMW Art Cars created by world renowned artists Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein were presented at the Jehangir Art Gallery in Mumbai. BMW Art Cars by Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, Sandro Chia and Cesar Manrique have been exclusively showcased at various editions of the India Art Fair. “The Future is Born of Art” is a unique initiative by BMW India and India Art Fair which aims to propel emerging Indian artists and further BMW Group’s commitment to promote art, sustainability, and innovation. In 2012-13, the innovative BMW Guggenheim Lab came to India. Based at Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum and conducted at six different sites in Mumbai, the lab organised six weeks of free programme with diverse audience and communities addressing the challenges and conditions of the urban city.
Since 2012, BMW has partnered with the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, the contemporary art exhibition, which brings international artists to India and creates a global platform for Indian artists. This vital and dynamic partnership has been instrumental in shaping the Biennale into a global cultural landmark. BMW Group’s continued commitment, even in uncertain times, highlights the profound belief in the power of art and culture to unite and inspire.
About the Kochi-Muziris Biennale
Kochi-Muziris Biennale is India’s first ever biennial of international contemporary art and its story is unique to India’s current reality—its political, social and artistic landscape. It began as a government initiative, when the Department of Cultural Affairs of Government of Kerala approached two artists—Riyas Komu and Bose Krishnamachari—to help organize an international platform for art in India. The challenge was proportionate to the ambition of the project. A biennial had never gotten past the conceptual stage in India before. There was no existing infrastructure necessary for an exhibition of this scale—no spaces and no institutional support structures.
With the support of the government, private patrons, and local businesses the Biennale found the spaces and opened them up for art. The Indian art community has been growing rapidly and has been emerging onto the world stage, and the international arts community offered their support in sending art and artists to participate in Kochi. Artists became the spokespersons and activists for the biennale.
About Nikhil Chopra
Nikhil Chopra’s artistic practice interweaves live art, drawing, photography, sculpture and installations. His performances, in large part improvised, dwell on identity and its construction, autobiography and authorship, the pose and
self-portraiture. Nikhil combines everyday life, memory and collective history; daily acts such as eating, resting, washing and dressing, in tandem with the act and discipline of making large scale drawings in situ become the process of making an artwork.
Nikhil’s works have been included in major exhibitions including Documenta 14, 12th Sharjah Biennale, 12th Havana Biennale; 2nd Kochi-Muziris Biennale and 53rd Venice Biennale amongst others. He has also shown works and performed at the Gropius Bau, Berlin; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester; New Art Exchange, Nottingham; , SFMOMA, San Francisco; Artsonje, Seoul; Museum of Contemporary Art, Yinchuan, China; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo, Norway; Indian Highway, Serpentine Gallery, London, UK; Carriageworks, Sydney; Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi.
Nikhil Chopra was born in Kolkata in 1974, and lives in Goa where he runs HH Art Spaces with partners. After studying at the Faculty of Fine Arts at Maharaja Sayajirao University of Vadodara, India, the artist continued his studies in the United States in 2003 to return to India in 2005 with a Masters from Ohio State University.
About HH Art Spaces
HH Art Spaces, Goa, was founded in 2014 by Nikhil Chopra and Romain Loustau, both live art and performance artists. HH Art Spaces is a movement, and currently includes the shared vision, voices, rigors, and energies of a collective of artists and cultural practitioners. Key founding and partner members of the organization are: Madhavi Gore, Shivani Gupta, and Shaira Sequeira Shetty.HH Art Spaces fosters an ethos of collaborations, residencies and interdisciplinary exchanges within art and culture; and has worked with artists and organizations locally, regionally and internationally.
Over the years, HH Art Spaces has developed a rich archive of visual, sonic, installation, and live art and performance work, in South Asia. HH Art Spaces promotes artists and produces exhibitions and artist residencies, talks and workshops, in contemporary and traditional artistic practice-based research, bridging transdisciplinary practices through collaborations and partnerships. HH is a hub and a laboratory for artists and curators to investigate and explore new forms and approaches within arts and cultural practice.
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