Going the Kochi Way

Noted journalist and writer Jacoby gives a graphic narrative on the contemporary art scene of Kochi, which has become a haunting place of the major players in the Indian art market. Contemporary art has replaced all other allurements of this historic city, says Jacoby.

Trite cliques and heavy-spin tourism hype apart, the colonial island fortress of Cochin, renamed in recent times as Kochi, the first European settlement in India, is today one of the hottest destinations for contemporary art lovers in India. The picturesque cantilevered Chinese fishing nets, traditional rice boats remodelled into multi-star luxury houseboats elegantly cruising the backwaters, the trance inducing rhythms of classical Kathakali dance, and the exuberant rituals of Ayurveda rejuvenation therapies all now fade into the backdrop with a few splashy, stunning brushstrokes.

Who could ever imagine a quaint little art café rendezvous, modestly restyled from an old colonial Dutch house on Burgher Street in the Heritage district of Fort Cochin, not far from the bay front, would become a favourite haunt for some of the most discriminating art collectors in India and upscale art galleries in New York, Mumbai or Singapore! Anoop Skaria and Dorrie Younger, the irrepressibly warmhearted duo who could be the most cool, easygoing dream merchants ever in the contemporary art scene in the country, are themselves “frightened,” they say, by the way their humble Kashi Art Café project evolved into one of the major art powerhouses in India within such a short span of time.

The art café, offering exotic coffee and some exquisite melt-in-the-mouth cakes and pies among its top list of menu choices, began to draw popular attention steadily as small, intimate gatherings around new exhibits and featured events led to burgeoning demands. “In the beginning, some artists couldn’t just bear the idea of showing their work in a café, but slowly the perception changed,” Dorrie Younger recalls. The first exhibition was for CV Ramesh, who works on brass and wood sculpture and relief.

“Within three years we had to look for extended space for the shows, and we shifted the café part towards the back, leaving the whole front for art,” says Dorrie.

The Bombay x 17 show in 2003, for which 17 artists based in Mumbai came to Kochi along with Bose Krishnamachari and Jyothi Basu, was a major turning point in changing the profile of Kashi. “They understood clearly what we were trying to do here,” says Anoop. “Our simple ambience and earnest approach struck a chord.” Kashi went on to showcase some of the upcoming young stars along with a few veterans – Alex Mathew, CN Karunakaran, NN Rimzon, Babu Xavier, Rajan M. Krishnan, Sosa Joseph, Gopikrishna, Reghunandan K, Ashok Kumar, Janardhanan, Upendranath TR, Jyothikumar, Valsaraj, Baiju Parthan, Valsan Koorma Kolleri, Sudarshan Shetty, TM Aziz, CK Murali, TP Premjee, and Sakshi Gupta among some of the big draws.

On the sixth anniversary of the Art Café, a more spacious Kashi Art Gallery was opened. The new premises, a restored colonial godown with a large courtyard, wide verandhas and a balcony that opens to the bustling street scenes in the heart of Kochi’s famous spice trade, houses a 1,000-sq-ft gallery, besides inspiring studio spaces and facilities for shared accommodation, ideal for residency programmes meant for promoting serious artistic endeavours. The red-tiled gallery is just a walking distance away from the Dutch Palace, built by the Portuguese and presented to the Maharajah of Cochin in 1555, where a stunning collection of murals are still on display, and the Paradesi Synagogue, the oldest Jewish temple in the Commonwealth in the old Jew Town quarters now full of antiques, craft and curio shops and pungent flavours of the spice bazaar. Kashi Art Retreat at Kakkaturret, a backwater village 25km from Kochi, is also offered to artists who look for more solitude.

The Kashi Award for Visual Art (KAVA), with its second edition exhibition currently running at the Mattancherry Gallery, has become a sensation, what with one of its first winners, a very young Prajakta Palav, soaring so high overnight in the international scene that one of her works went for auction at the Sotheby’s!

“It may seem incredible, but the amazing fact is that we’ve seen some of our bright young artists who were selling for Rs 40,000 two years ago in their debut solo shows, today commanding a Rs 4 million price tag in the market,” says Anoop, without any hint of exaggeration.

Upendranath’s is a classic example. A self-made artist working on the craft of paper collages, Upendranath did two installations at Kashi, and today he is commissioned by major promoters outside Kerala.

A number of top-selling professionals of the new generation, some of them brilliant alumni from renowned art institutions like Baroda MS University, have opened their studios in Kochi, determined to make it a happening place. Rajan M. Krishnan, Sosa Joseph, Zakkir Hussain, Mohandas and Reghunandan are among the frontline trendsetters in this regard.