Valsan Koorma Kolleri
Title: untitled
Size: 36" x 20"
Medium: soft pastel on paper
Year: 2006
Status:Available
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Valsan Koorma Kolleri. The Indian participant in Documenta X. Suddenly there will be an onrush of questions. Is it? Why? No documents say that he has participated in Docuementa X? How do you claim that he has participated?
That is the problem, Valsan says. “You need proof for everything. You need an ECG record for knowing that you have a heart. Why can’t you say that you have a heart, if you believe that you have one?’ asks Valsan.
Valsan’s participation in Documenta X is legendary, fictitious and ‘real’. A work of Valsan titled ‘L ‘aller retour’ 1995 was the work that participated in Documenta X. This 33 cm x 5 cm work is made by teak wood, iron, cotton rope, copper and lacquer. Valsan wore this work around his neck and visited Documenta X. Nothing was official about it. The whole lot of people who visited Documenta X watched this Indian man curiously. They came to him, asked him questions. He explained the work.
L ‘aller retour was a shuttle abandoned by a weaver. Ages of use had made it as polished as a mirror. Valsan fitted a small axe like form to it. The axe; the axe of the legendary Parasurama, who retrieved the land of Kerala from the sea by throwing an axe in it. Both the shuttle and the axe had traveled innumerable miles. They represented the journey. Two uncanny objects making a mutant reality of time, self and culture.
Valsan became an immediate hit in Documenta X by default. Artists, art critics and art lovers thronged around him to know more about this man and his works. They abandoned the stalls to meet an artist from India. Valsan says, “I learned English through Malayalam medium. So my English is not limited by English.” Using this unlimited English Valsan explained his works to a foreign audience.
Valsan, while explaining this work says that this is one of the works that has traveled an infinite length. From Documenta, Vatsan went all over Europe. From Europe to Britain. From there to the US. All the states in America. Then he came back to India. All along the work was dangling from around his neck. When he exhibited this work in 1998 at the Pundole Gallery, Mumbai it became one of the longest traveled work of art in history.
You have any disputes? Valsan asks. No. Because the shuttle, which was with the weaver, before abandoned by him, how many miles might it have traveled, through warps and wefts. From left to right and right to left. The music of weaving. The music of time. A work of art that transcended the time.
Valsan Koorma Kolleri’s works are the springs of surprises. Valsan finds his sculptural elements from around. In one of his works titled ‘Time Specific’ he weaves a basket out of the abandoned springs of grandfather clocks. How many deaths have you seen my dear spring, he asks. And how many births have you marked? How many wars have you recorded in your tensed up body? And how many love makings have you witness in your unwinding moments?
Valsan is a historian of the earth and elements. His works reflect historical momentums. Grand theories and the critical rhetoric do not affect him or attract him. He finds the music in an old yoke. And another syllable of it from a camel hide. They are united with the leg of an old chair. Suddenly they speak the history of man kind, its development through an indigenous economics, politics and culture. Power relationships, agrarian economics and an innovative life style- Valsan’s works depict the archeology of the human selves.
They look disintegrated in their congregation. But try to separate them. Impossible. Like the laterite blocks that contain the ages of sedimentation process, they are held together by the awareness of the artist. Each element, found objects or crafted objects becomes integral to this disintegration and congregation process. As mentioned, Laterite is a favorite medium of Valsan. He can create monumental works out of the earth. He sings the yeoman’s and the ploughman’s songs.
In this archeology of selves, Valsan goes for a naming spree. He gives them composite names. Names derived from his mother tongue and also the names derived by syncopating words. New-Bronze, New-Clear-Age, Work of Art as Retrospective, Janani, New-Sense. Each title and each work of Valsan rings up to a difference sense. New-Clear-Age is a stand by for Nuclear Age. Why couldn’t it be? Then New Sense must be Nuisance. Yes art is a nuisance at times, Valsan says.
Valsan pools up his money for his pet project ‘Shilpa Padhyam’ in Malabar. Shilpa Padhyam is a centre for sculptures. Artists, writers, art lovers and everyone can come there, work, meditate, do yoga, do Kalari and relax. Every on has to relax through working. If you don’t have a laptop, you have wet clay there. Make sculptures. The whole ensemble is designed by three architects from NID. The whole structure is in laterite and wood.
“Where do we come from, where are we going?” Valsan does not have too many answers. We come from the earth and we are going towards Shilpa Padhyam. It is a resource centre and it is an action centre also. All what Valsan makes out of his works, goes to the building of Shilpa Padhyam. And there is going to be a gallery, that takes only 20 per cent commission. Do you hear me, 20 per cent commission. And that money is going to be the working capital for the Shilpa Padhyam.
Here is Valsan Koorma Kolleri. A much traveled artist. As his prices go towards north, he goes towards South. All paths lead to the same place: Shilpa Padhyam. |
