The Experimenter gallery in Kolkata is hosting the 5th edition of Curators’ Hub this weekend. The three-day event will bring together Indian and international curators to present and talk about what went into curating their most recent exhibitions.
We asked three of their celebrated curators to tell us about the artists on their radar:
“I am looking forward to Prem Sahib’s solo exhibition at the ICA in London which opens this September, as well as Shumona Goel and Shai Heredia’s film on FN Souza. I think it will be very interesting to see how Goel and Heredia engage Souza and his legacy, in what I am sure will be a very elegant film. Concurrently, I am keen to see how experiences of intimacy, desire, sexuality, community and relationships continue to inspire Sahib’s minimal sculptures and installations.”
– Shanay Jhaveri, film curator and PhD candidate at the Royal College of Art, London
“A young artist I’m really excited about is Mumbai-based Sahej Rahal. His installations, films and performances are part of an elaborate personal mythology he has created by drawing characters from a range of sources, from local legends to science fiction. When I invited Sahej to participate in the second edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale that I curated, he spent months in Kochi, producing a multi-layered installation titled ‘Harbinger’. Placed inside a disused laboratory, the work was a complex tapestry of numerous elements such as ceremonial masks, ancient blades, astronomical devices, monoliths and sci-fi automations made in unfired clay, as if a subterranean past was colliding with a distant future.”
– Jitish Kallat, artist and curator of 2nd Edition of Kochi-Muziris Biennale
“Samir Parker’s work explores changing urban landscapes, the city’s constant flux, both its hubris and its vulnerabilities. In his latest work, he has installed coloured tarpaulin in a Mumbai slum working with the local community to engage it in a creative exploration of coping with the exigent conditions each monsoon brings for the fragile communities living on the city’s edge. He has photographed the coloured patchwork from a height creating statement of survival by underscoring the distance between those who are privileged and the sheer grit it takes for the others to negotiate the city. Parker combines a confluence of skills in architecture, design, drawing, photography and installation. But his work particularly focuses on dramatic urban forms.”
– Tasneem Zakaria Mehta, managing trustee and honorary director, Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum
Experimenter Curators’ Hub 2015 will run from Thursday, July 23 to Saturday, July 25 at Experimenter, 2/1 HIndusthan Road, Kolkata. Experimenter.in
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