EDITED BY DIVYA MENON
WHAT TO TALK ABOUT THIS MONTH
ARTW
ORK
CO
URTE
SY: S
ARN
ATH
BAN
ERJE
E
1 2 3 4 5Tell us about your involvement with
Frieze Projects East and the London
2012 Festival.I had an exhibition at the Frieze Art Fair a
couple of years ago and I guess the curatorial
team remembered me. I like their policy of
building relationships with artists.
What is this collection of work
about?It is a series of posters and a graphic narrative
around competitive sport. I proposed a
‘gallery of non-winners’. It includes billboards and graphic essays in newspapers. It’s like a campaign on people
who fail despite trying very hard.
You’re the only artist whose work will be displayed in all six
boroughs of the London Olympic
Games.It’s the nature of the
project; to be accessible to the community
where it will be shown. I feel privileged to be allowed to
communicate with such a large group of people.
Why do your pieces focus on Brazil’s fi rst
judo champion? I interviewed Douglas
Vieira, who almost won gold at the LA
Olympics, in São Paulo. He told me that judo is as much about falling as it is about throwing. It
was strangely liberating. Four years later I made
it into a proposal.
How important are posters as an
art form?Very important. These images don’t belong to the galleries—they
need to be seen in tube stations, bus stops and
newspapers. —Allie Biswas
ART
Selected for London’s prestigious Cultural Olympiad, SARNATH BANERJEE takes the cool of the graphic novel to the world’s biggest art audience
POSTER CHILD
FRIEZE FRAMEFrom top: Mother And Judo by Banerjee; a page from The Harappa Files (2011). Inset: Sarnath Banerjee.
www.vogue.in VOGUE INDIA JULY 2012 85
The exhibition marks a return to familiar stomping grounds for Sarnath Banerjee. “[London] is like home. I went to university here and haunted its streets till the early hours of the morning,” says the artist. FACT
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