And I laid traps for the Troubadors who get killed before they reached Bombay
Exposition à Clark House Initiative, Bombay, Inde.
du 7 février au 27 avril, 2014
Une collaboration entre Kadist Art Foundation & Clark House Initiative
Avec: Francis Alÿs, Liz Ballard, Yael Bartana, Yogesh Barve, Kemi Bassene, Judy Blum, Sachin Bonde, Kennedy Browne, CAMP, Ceal Floyer, Aurélien Froment, Grupo Etcetera, David Horvitz, Poonam Jain, Jamboys, Mangesh Kapse, Ben Kinmont, Lawrence Liang, Simon Liddiment, Scott Myles, Open Circle, Prabhakar Pachpute, Amol Patil, Rupali Patil, Justin Ponmany, Tatiana Pozzo Di Borgo, Prasad Nikumbh, Roman Ondak, Pratchaya Phinthong, Prajakta Potnis, Nikhil Raunak, Société Réaliste, Zied Ben Romdhane, Caecilia Tripp and Nil Yalter, Carey Young.
Workshop à l’atelier d’impression de la Sir JJ School of Art, un projet pédagogique d’Aurélien Mole.
Traps for the Troubadours… est le second volet d’un projet commencé à Paris en 2013 avec l’exposition L’exigence de la saudade par les commissaires Zasha Colah et Sumesh Sharma, et revendique cette généalogie en reprenant le titre de la publication associée à L’exigence de la saudade, qui fait aussi référence à la chanson des Rolling Stones «Sympathy for the Devil» et à un imaginaire exotique de l’Inde.
Le premier chapitre du projet avait permis d’exposer à Paris des artistes indiens trop peu visibles en Europe. A Bombay, les commissaires associent des oeuvres de la collection Kadist à des pièces de jeunes artistes indiens et prolongent leurs réflexions sur la décontextualisation des pratiques artistiques.
En effet, cet échange d’une année en miroir, déplacements de commissaires, d’artistes et d’oeuvres d’Asie en Europe et inversement, ont engagé des déplacements d’idées.
Ces décentrements et déconstructions sont le point de départ de la réflexion que se propose de mener Traps for the Troubadours, à partir d’oeuvres d’artistes
de la collection Kadist. Au-delà des questions proprement matérielles que pose un projet mené entre Paris et Bombay, manifeste d’une scène artistique en voie de mondialisation, il interroge également les pièces dans leur recontextualisation. Les oeuvres existent en contexte : l’expérience du déplacement offre à la pièce la possibilité non pas d’importer un sens qui préexisterait mais bien au contraire de démultiplier ses possibles lectures à la lumière d’un environnement nouveau.
Clark House, ancien bureau de transport du port historique qu’est Bombay – lieu de circulation d’objets et
d’idées – accueille ainsi une exposition sur l’art en transit, l’économie et les déplacements esthétiques et
conceptuels qu’il occasionne.
http://www.kapsul.org/public/and-i-laid-traps-for-the-troubadors-who-get-killed-before-they-reached-bombay#published=true
A collaboration between Kadist Art Foundation & Clark House Initiative, Bombay, India.
The image of Nil Yalter above tells a history, impossible today, travelling from Istanbul to Bombay, by trains and road, crossing several national borders. The exhibition’s title, And I laid traps for troubadours who get killed before they reached Bombay, taken from a song by the Rolling Stones, is Lucifer’s amoral recount of evil in history. Mick Jagger’s ‘Bombay’ ironically conjures all the exoticism of the East for those on the sixties hippie trail.
Recalling alternatives, the economies of the social contract, of gift-exchange, and the commons, in the face of rising exclusive nationalism, And I laid traps for troubadours who get killed before they reached Bombay is an exhibition of cultural transference: how ideas travel through objects and how the meaning of artworks will change and accrue, when brought into the context of Bombay’s political and social realities, and imaginaries. The exhibition uses the Kadist Art Foundation collection as a starting point to open to other collaborations. Works exist in situ: the travel experience, more than importing a pre-existing meaning, gives them the possibility to multiply their possible interpretations in the light of a new context. Clark House, once a shipping office, a political refuge, and an antiques’ storage – a historical place for the circulation of objects and ideas – therefore becomes a site of works in conceptual and aesthetic shift.
International exhibition making is often a logistical feat that lacks the presence of a social contract between artists exhibiting and those they intend to address. To include the social contract within the exhibition, imagines an alternative economy in art as a political act. Yet the economy is a cultural phenomenon, which interacts on a personal level with people. The exhibition in Bombay circumvents the trade routes that art works tread, eliminating the chicanery of customs regulations and taxes, through instruction artworks and performances, digital files, and artists travelling to produce work while sharing techniques, conceptual inquiry and experience with younger artists.
This exhibition is the second part of a project started in Paris in 2013 with the exhibition L’exigence de la saudade, curated by Zasha Colah and Sumesh Sharma then in residency at Kadist. The first part of this collaboration had achieved in presenting the work of Indian artists, not visible enough in Europe, while asking how a work of culture may retain its radicality as it is transferred, propelled or translated into the context of Paris – to imagine what ‘cultural equality’ may mean.
With: Francis Alÿs, Liz Ballard, Yael Bartana, Yogesh Barve, Kemi Bassene, Judy Blum, Sachin Bonde, Kennedy Browne, CAMP, Ceal Floyer, Aurélien Froment, Grupo Etcetera, David Horvitz, Poonam Jain, Jamboys, Mangesh Kapse, Ben Kinmont, Lawrence Liang, Simon Liddiment, Scott Myles, Open Circle, Prabhakar Pachpute, Amol Patil, Rupali Patil, Justin Ponmany, Tatiana Pozzo Di Borgo, Prasad Nikumbh, Roman Ondak, Pratchaya Phinthong, Prajakta Potnis, Nikhil Raunak, Uday Shanbhag, Société Réaliste, Zied Ben Romdhane, Caecilia Tripp and Nil Yalter, Carey Young
Workshop at the Printmaking Studio of the Sir JJ School of Art, a pedagogical project by Aurélien Mole.
http://www.kapsul.org/public/and-i-laid-traps-for-the-troubadors-who-get-killed-before-they-reached-bombay#published=true