Now, Voyager

Travelling around has become more than a lifestyle choice for artists and their artworks. Zehra Jumabhoy journeys with them.

- Zehra Jumabhoy

Subodh Gupta. What does the vessel contain, that the river does not. Mixed media. 1.10 metres x 3.15 metres x 21.35 metres. 2012. © Subodh Gupta. Image courtesy of the artist and Arario Museum. Image courtesy of Hauser & Wirth.

THIS ESSAY FIRST APPEARED IN THE TRAVELLING ART ISSUE OF ART INDIA VOLUME XVII, ISSUE 111, 2013.

A Sea Change

"Beauty is located at the shifting centre of slow time that enables us to plunge into waters that carry us to other shores," read the romantic text pasted next to Vivan Sundaram's installation, Black Gold, at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale in 2012-13. Here, pottery shards collected from the archeological site of Pattanam (where the fabled seaport of Muziris was thought to be) were assembled in a rectangular format. Fragrant black beads nestled amongst these simulated architectural ruins - i.e. pepper, the black gold' of the title. Opposite Sundaram's spicy excavation site was Subodh Gupta's Untitled offering, a boat piled high with household goods (furniture, a TV set and the inevitable stainless steel pots). These bartans, bundles and belongings were such as one would attribute to poor immigrants or refugees. Nearby, Sheela Gowda and Christopher Storz's Stopover (2012) spoke about difficult journeys too: 170 grinding stones, excavated from old houses, were grouped disconsolately together. Traditionally used to pound spices, they are now obsolete, thanks to the advent of modern kitchen conveniences. Gowda gathered them up to make Stopover which, the wall-text informed us, was meant to be a "graveyard of grinding stones". Was it really? Viewers stumbled upon the display on a promontory overlooking the sparkling sea. Had their travels/travails ended or just begun?