Painterly explorations: Notes from India’s Kochi-Muziris Biennale

This article offers a critical account of ‘painterly explorations’ at the second Kochi-Muziris Biennale (which under the curatorship of Jitish Kallat took the title of ‘Whorled Explorations’). Painting at the Biennale in 2014 was surprisingly conspicuous, particularly when understood in its expanded sense. Following an account of some of the different painting practices on display, the article draws upon the term ‘social gestus’ (the critical demonstration of gestures) to suggest a reading of global, contemporary art that is concerned with the coordinates and situating of gestures as an entire form, and which is critically revealing of itself. The productionist site of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale provides a fitting example of what social, critical meanings painting can reveal.