[-empyre-] Welcome to empyre Week 4:Rethinking Curatorial Options: Globally

[saij netart]

Dear Arshiya, dear empyreans,

Your message gives me the opportunity to switch from lurker
to writer. Thanks ! I completely agree with you regarding
the exhibitions taking place in Paris.

I saw the exhibition "les magiciens de la terre" and really
enjoyed it. I didn't saw "Paris - Delhi - Mumbai" but
I got a disapointed echo from a french relation who lived in India
and has a passion for the indian culture.
It is also incredible to refuse to visit India. What a lack of 
curiosity, what a stupidity !
Which fear is hidden behind the strange idea that "to visit India
would disturb their notion of the way they visualized India".
And as far as I know the indian artists were not invited
to visit France!

Pierre Loti, Claude Farrere,... are french writers
who visited India, wrote about the indian culture and made
possible a discover of the "otherness". By the way how can you
exist without the other(s) (Julia Kristeva "Strangers to ourselves"
Columbia University Press New-York 1991) ?

I went once to India some years ago. As a visual artist I was
impressed by the colors, the scents, the sounds.
My wish was always to get this flavour again. That's why
I'm currently working on a project which should allow exchanges
between indian and french artists. Nothing is more valuable than the
discover of another culture to "de-bunk" our own mind.

All my best.

Isabel Saij
France




Lakeeren Gallery wrote:
> Greetings from Mumbai !  
> 
> 
> Hi everyone,  
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you for your invitation to join this engaging discussion Renate 
> and Tim. I do apologize for jumping in so late.  I think the issues 
> raised here regards the “curatorial and social considerations” that 
> impact the "cultural, political, and theoretical reception of artistic 
> practice," and “positioning work within the sanctioned spaces of museums 
> and galleries,” is tied into each other. 
> 
> 
> To recount this from a curatorial faux-pas /Paris- Delhi- Mumbai/( An 
> exhibition between French and Indian artists), Summer 2011 at the 
> Pompidou in Paris. Not sure if anyone saw it …but it was appalling given 
> that /Magiciens de la Terre/ took place in the same venue 22 years ago. 
> Given documenta 11 and other noted exhibitions… to see an information 
> booth at the heart of the exhibit “selling India” supporting material in 
> the form of maps, statistical census data and bollywood movies and 
> songs…was unpalatable. Also several of the French artist refused to 
> visit India as it would disturb their notion of the way they visualized 
> India… was unaceptable. What is santioned within museums spaces in 
> relation to our shared histories and politics in terms of “otherness” 
> needs to questioned( why can’t this be a collaborative process for 
> example). What head way have we made into “curating cultures” and 
> de-bunking the Eurocentric gaze?
> 
>  
> 
> Sorry about this rant but more to follow soon….
> 
> Arshiya