Abstract
This article employs artifacts from the KMB’s “material culture” as a lens into this institution’s branding process and, within it, its interaction with the Venice Biennale. It analyzes larger questions about the career of the biennale cultural form as it re-territorializes in a new location that is added to the art world map “in progress.” Historically, geographical location has been crucial for many biennales in the Global South to articulate their origin, identity, and claims vis-à-vis the global art world. Moreover, biennale proliferation especially in the South has produced cartographic re-imaginings aiming to destabilize the “center-periphery” configuration of the art world map. The article shows that the KMB does not reiterate ideological standings put forward by Southern biennales but crafts its positionality on different grounds. These entail simultaneously anchoring the KMB to histories of circulation in and out of South India tracing back at least two millennia and strategically weaving a relation with the archetypical Venice Biennale in the present.
Acknowledgements
I wish to express my immense gratitude to the Framing the Global initiative and to all who are part of it for providing a precious intellectual space that, over the years, has led to a radical transformation of my scholarly identities and practices. Concerning this article, I am extremely grateful to Hilary E. Kahn, Jonathan Larson, Zsuzsa Gille and the reviewers for their invaluable questions, comments and suggestions as well as their care and patience that have made the (re)writing process a very fertile and safe space.
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