The Tamesis
Just weeks after it opened in mid-December, India’s top biennale, the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, was forced to briefly close due to protests by Christian groups over a painting depicting the Last Supper.
Tom Vattakuzhy’s painting does not appear in the Biennale’s main exhibition, Temporarily, but in EDAM, a regular side exhibition organized by the Kochi Biennale Foundation, which focuses on the practice of artists and collectives from the southern Indian state of Kochi. “EDAM” is performed at various locations across Kochi Prefecture; Vatakuri’s paintings are on display at the Garden Conference Center, a short walk from the Biennale’s main venue.
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Kerala has the largest Christian population in India (approximately 6 million people, approximately 18% of the state’s total population) due to its long history as a trading port with the Middle East and a major landing point for Portuguese, British and Dutch missionaries and merchants. It is said that Thomas, one of the original 12 disciples of Jesus, preached after arriving in Kerala in 52 AD.
Biju Josey Karumanchery, secretary of the Kerala Latin Catholic Association, said in a social media post that Vattakuzhy’s painting “insults our faith”. He also questioned why public funds – crucial to organizing the biennale – were used for what he described as offensive work. Similar concerns have been raised by the Syro-Malabar Church, an Eastern Catholic church in Kerala, according to Indian news outlets horn. In a letter sent to government officials, the Latin Catholic Council of Kerala called the painting a “distorted and inappropriate relic of the Last Supper” and called for its removal.
Watakuri said he had no intention of offending. “I was born in a Christian family and most of my work is inspired by humanism in Christian values. This artwork is an extension of that thought process and not a distortion of The Last Supper as claimed by those who object to it,” he said, according to Indian English daily The Hindu. hinduism.
He further said that the painting was inspired by a play by Kerala playwright C. Gopan, which itself was based on a poem about Mata Hari, a Dutch dancer who was executed by the French as a German spy during the First World War.
EDAM curators KM Madhusudhanan and Aishwarya Suresh and biennale chairman Bose Krishnamachari defended the work in a joint statement, saying the foundation would not delete Vattakuzhy’s painting as doing so amounted to censorship.
Biennale organizers said the exhibition would reopen on January 2, but it was unclear at press time whether this would be the case.
