For quite some time now, I have been wondering what it would be like to converge a group of narratives into a single conceptual framework. Once seeded, the idea of coalescing the age-old idiom of short stories and the ‘trending’ form of short films with the exploration of contemporary mediums in today’s visual art practice took on a life of its own. After a prolonged brainstorming session with myself, I came up with the idea of ‘storytellers’ or “raconteurs.” I aimed to develop my stories and concepts into a project that would be narrated in predominantly visual language by my collaborative contemporary visual art practitioners. On a personal level, it was exhilarating to float a platform where I would get a chance to experiment with this idea of showcasing artworks that would narrate discrete stories using varied mediums, where the artists would dissolve the lines of convention and be at liberty to explore and express themselves as writers, but in their native language, i.e., the language of the visual arts.

As I moved forward in this journey, the next step, decisive for the rationalisation of this project, was how it could be related to and set in the context of short stories and short films, which I mentioned earlier. Here I would like to share an honest insight—let’s call it a ”clue’—that brought me closer to a resolution. The clue, at least the way I see it, was my studio space. This guided me to the format of the show. My studio space, as we can all see and understand, is an intimate one. The site-specific sensibility has been a common underlying factor in all the shows I have visualised and mounted here. The cube has its own charm as well as limitations, which I used to my advantage by ignoring conventions. That’s when I stretched the wings of my imagination and went all out to make this wish a reality by displaying the stories episodically, not together in a group, which is the routine process for organising a group exhibition.

For this reason, I called this group “Collaboration.” I decided to exhibit each story, one at a time, as depicted through the idiosyncratic visual narration of my collaborative colleagues and artists. Once my template was in place, the artists were given free rein to create and express, as well as to perceive the stories from their individual founts of experience.

My own story so far, as an art curator and conceptualizer, has been exciting and fluid, enriched by my interactions with the stalwarts alongside the very interesting young artists of my generation. This helped me select my storytellers. I wanted to showcase the justified usage of varied contemporary mediums in present-day visual art making; that was my clear criterion. My search followed its path accordingly.

“RACONTEURS,” I sincerely hope, will be an engaging series of shows, as stimulating as the process of conceptualizing it and making it happen.

Ayan Mukherjee

Curator.