Project Arts Centre presents
Valsan Koorma Kolleri is one of India’s leading contemporary artists and undertook a three-week residency in Project’s Gallery. During this time, Kolleri developed a ‘retrospective artwork’ in the form of a wall drawing that covers the entire space. These work references aspects of his practice from the last thirty years, which have been drawn to different scales on the gallery walls. Primarily a sculptor, his sculptures and installations emerge largely out of the conditions in which they take place, using materials to hand.
Film footage of slide shows shot in Kerala and Bangalore constituted the starting point of a three week residency in Project’s gallery. During the residency, Kolleri experimented with the theme and format of a retrospective, building on the premise that whenever he tries to remake old works they come out differently and better. Working both collaboratively and alone and using whichever method and material seems most suited, the artist wanted to see if it is possible to produce a retrospective as an artwork on the spot.
Biographies
Trained in Madras, Baroda and then Paris, Kolleri’s work from the 1970s which were made from materials such as clay, plaster and stone, had an affinity with minimalist sculpture, while a period during the ’80s, referred to as his ‘Bronze Age’, produced small cast works with the quality of artifacts. His more recent environmentally oriented installations, however, interact with trees, new or historic architectural structures and urban spaces. They are made variously from plastic bags, paper pulp, bamboo and stone. Most of this work no longer exists. In fact, one of the characteristics of Kolleri’s practice is its often ephemeral nature. The most comprehensive documentation is the artist’s own collection of slides that number in the thousands, and provide the basis for the slide lectures that he frequently delivers and considers to be integral in terms of historicizing his practice.
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