Gallery 27

A Second Coming

Once bitten twice shy. As lovers of art we refuse to believe that we have been

bitten. Nor do we have any intention of shying away from art. When we

started Chaitanya Art Gallery in 2007 we were just one of the handful of

galleries in little Kochi waking up to the world of art around the corner. Little

did we realize that within less than a decade we would be struggling to turn

the corner. It was not that we were not aware of the basic timeline that an

average gallery followed: the first year you lose money, the second year you

break even and in the third you make a profit. Passionate as we were about

what we pursued we kept on, what else, losing money. However, we kept the

gallery going against all odds, secretly washing away the blood that the

gallery was bleeding on to the pavement outside. Not a single foot that

stepped inside the gallery between those aching years from 2007 to 2013 was

stained by the spills on the street.

Not for a moment did we dream then that our gallery would become a

booming a profit maker. So Chaitanya was not a runaway hit. It didn’t set

Kochi on fire. No painter or sculptor rose from its precincts, Subodh Gupta-

like, from its stable of artists. But we steadily kept on showing and made silent

statements into the sea that caressed the shores of Kochi. We had our share

of god fortune, though of a modest kind. Yet, little did we foresee them turning

into exhalations of enormity. WE struggled to pay our monthly bills. Eventually

we had to pull down the shutters on Chaitanya one day in January 2013.

But we were not gone though. Bitten? Yes. Not shy. We bided our time. Till

February this year. And Gallery 27 was born. We had moved to Mattancherry

where we had more space, more ambitions and many more stars in our eyes

than before. We also had our motley crowd of steady supporters who have

kept on egging on. Leading the pack was Bose Krishnamachari who kept on

pushing us forward towards this 3000 plus square feet of space by the

backwaters. And always we still want to break away from tradition and unlike

the market norm where the strategy is to strategy is to maintain an aura of

magic about the business. We want to put art above everything else and sport

candour sans concern. We want to explore the mystery that lies underneath

dealing art, embrace the romance of being in the world of art, putting

everything on the line, with, of course, no security at all. We still don’t know

where this second outing of ours will take us to. We have taken the plunge

again, ready to swim unmindful of the lurking sharks that are waiting to bite

chunks out of us. But any enterprise means entering choppy waters. We

realize that the primary function of an art gallery in Kochi is to introduce new

and imaginative art to the people here. We would like to develop the

reputations of local artists, make their careers, nurture and develop them.

And, obviously, we will help each other pay our bills.

We were thrilled to be the vessel in which ailing artist Rajan Krishnan chose to

make his comeback and we were proud to put up his works, the two small

watercolours that he had done after been struck to bed for nearly a year, on

the opening day. However, our joy was short-lived when Rajan cruelly

announced to the world that those two watercolours would be his last. He will

no longer be with us anymore, ever, to give us delightful works like before.

That was truly an early shock.

However, his smiling face would always lurk in the corners of the twin white

cubes of Gallery 27 guiding us through our journey with bleeding edge art that

he was such a vociferous advocate of. In fact, the Kochi-Muziris Biennale

would remain our torchbearer and we will follow the beacon from that

lighthouse and as we ride the waves living up to the exacting standards that

this international event has set. Wish us luck. We have set sail.