Portrait of Art Lovers

We often forget that artists are art lovers, too. That while they make art, they may also enjoy viewing other people’s art, considering it, critiquing it. The last week of the bangaloREsidency gave our artists the opportunity to finally, after weeks of working on their own projects, be the spirited gallery hoppers that they are.

Soon after wrapping up their final presentations in Bangalore, all the residents headed to Kochi, Kerala for the famous Kochi-Muziris Biennale. Spread across the historical area of Fort Kochi, this art festival brings together artists from all around the world. The town’s colonial warehouses – which are normally sleepy, routine business centres – transform into quirky gallery spaces and site-specific artworks themselves. As our residents explored the art in Kochi, the paparazzi a.k.a. their buddies (the interns) followed them to find out about their experiences. Here is Ingo talking about why this work caught his eye:

 
Sometimes, our responses to art cannot be encapsulated by words. Sometimes, it’s just the feeling of walking by a work or through it or sitting in its presence that makes it memorable. Here is Laura’s mini tour of the work:  
Three bangaloREsidents were also residents at Pepper House, one of the venues for the Kochi Biennale. Anton Kats, Lisa Premke, and Sophie-Therese Trenka-Dalton each presented a work that they developed in Kochi. In the process, they also got to know Kochi more intimately.
 
Kochi is a town of colliding histories. There’s the Dutch. The Portuguese. The Indian. The Hindu, the Muslim, and the Christian. Beyond the dizzying art displays, the town itself, with its half-crumbling buildings and large boats is an exciting site to explore:
After their visit to Kochi, the artists were ready to head their separate ways—some off to Goa for another arts festival called Serendipity, others back to Germany, and others to somewhere else in India, without a specific plan. Just before they left Kochi, Nika and Lucas of matthaei&pfeifer summed up their wonderful visit: