India, Kerala
"What is the art of the guy who eats puttu and kadala for breakfast?"
Vivek Valasini
In Vivek Vilasini's hands, Kathakali artistes slip from the revered into the everyday. They line up for grub in 'The Last Supper', stretch across skies in 'The Creation of Adam', fall over themselves at Times Square, and bare ripped abs in body-building poses. While these pop-art pastiches of classic paintings were instantly blamed for blasphemy, they were also praised for speaking contemporary art in a vernacular language. Western art is all very well, but what is the art of the guy who eats puttu and kadala for breakfast?, enquires Vivek. The answer has been the subject of his exploration in seven solo shows that assimilate from the world, yet remain rooted in the local-'Between one shore and several others'.
http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/where-the-roots-rise/article5508319.ece