India's First Art Biennale in Kochi From Dec. 12

Kochi-Muziris Biennale — India’s first official art biennale — to begin on Dec. 12, 2012. The prophetic date (12.12.12), throwing doomsday predictions to the wind, was announced by the Kochi Biennale Foundation — a private non-profit organization. The art gala will continue for three months.

The biennale is likely to host 80 artists with nearly 50 percent foreign artists, site-specific works and a sustained education programs in this three months.

The biennale, styled on the Venice biennale, will reclaim several old Jewish, pre-colonial, colonial and native warehouses in the old Fort Kochi area lying in disuse to turn them into modern gallery spaces for display.

It will combine regeneration of old heritage for sustainable use with art. The warehouse was used by ancient Jewish traders and native merchants in Kochi and the historical port city of Muziris (modern day Kodangallur) as spice warehouses.

The biennale is in talks with international and Indian artists including Subodh Gupta, Kiran Subbaiah, Ranbir Kalekar, Shreyas Kale, Rohini Devasher, Surendran Nair, Pakistan's Bani Abidi, Indonesia's Fiona Tan, Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco, African artist Wangechi Mutu and Brazil's Ernesto Neto, said its co-curator and co-founder Bose Krishnamachari.