Paolo de Grandis, an international guest curator at the first Karachi Biennale, has to his credit many editions of the Venice Biennale and well over 118 exhibitions. In 1984, his first exhibition ‘Quartetto’ was a milestone curatorial project on the occasion of the 41st Venice Biennale. He brought the famous ‘Art Provera’ to New York in 1985 when he was 21, and in his own words, he “blew the minds of the Americans by bringing a communist art to a capitalist art centre.” In 1995, he invited Taiwan to the Venice Biennale, and since then, he has sought the participation of more than 200 countries, which has transformed the structure of the biennale. He has extended this participation in curating many international biennales in Asia and South Asia.

Eos spoke to this trailblazer curator on the occasion of Karachi’s first art biennale, the KB17, as he envisions the participation of Pakistan at the Venice Biennale of 2019.

The inclusion of celebrated Italian and other international artists to the Karachi Biennale has generated a lot of interest in the curatorial narrative of Amin Gulgee, the chief curator of the KB17. There has been an opportunity to seek new audiences across bridges of ethnicity and social divisions through art. It is as if the framework for new media, installation and experimental art has extended itself into new locations outside the parameters of conventional gallery and ‘alternative’ spaces — into forgotten neighborhoods, worn with time and history.

Paolo de Grandis illustrates how open-air art can grow infinitely because it is flexible and strong

Grandis believes that the Karachi Biennale will ‘open doors and windows’. It will introduce art to the young. He feels that art can never be a bad thing because it not only opens the mind, it also generates income and tourism for the city, as it has for Venice. His projects generate a huge yearly income for Venice. Grandis stressed on the need to seek government and private sponsorship of art in his keynote speech at the State Bank. He said he would like to see the Ministry of Culture and Tourism to be a part of it. He believes that it is time for Pakistan to be showcased in a country pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2019. He is here to look for artists and curators and to transport work to Asia and Europe.

Grandis has brought to Karachi, at the invitation of Amin Gulgee, top artists such as Ellisabetta di Sopra, Marco Nereo Rotelli, Feferico Nero, Yoko Ono, Max Papeschi and Michelangelo Pistoletto. Accompanying him is new media electronic work, ‘Hybrid Sutie/Lost in Reality’, curated by Claudio Crescentini. Grandis’ smile seems to come from the heart as he speaks about the possibilities that Karachi offers and the biennale in general. He narrates his own story about the beginning of his very successful and ambitious curatorial vision of ‘OPEN’ which he founded as a yearly international exhibition in Venice, in 1999.

The idea of ‘OPEN’ came about as he used to see people going inside the closed spaces of the cinemas each year at the Venice Film Festival, while everything outside was unchanged. That is when he thought of placing art work between his house and the festival, in order to ‘open’ the art to the public, and therein was the concept of the transformative power of art in a public space. It was at the first ‘OPEN’ where among the work of Cezanne and other artists, he included the work of Amin Gulgee. Gulgee is part of this year’s ‘OPEN 20’ with his installation of the Chahrbaagh. Incidentally, Grandis has invited Michelangelo Pistoletto, the first artist that he came in contact with many years ago, to show in Karachi. There was a great deal of curiosity and excitement among the artists who were eager to show their work here. Yoko Ono is represented by a digital work, installed at the NJV School, as is Marco Rotelli, who shows a work in textile. Rotelli accompanied Grandis to Karachi, and enthralled an audience of a hall packed with high school students and artists, with his brilliant interventions of light and sound on buildings.

Grandis says that growing up in Venice was like growing up in Disney World. “I had no idea what art was. I used to jump inside the Giardini. When I saw this art, I did not understand it, but felt that it was completely different from the rest of the world that was outside.” He recalls not understanding the art he saw but it made him happy — he felt that there was something to understand in it. We can presume this to be the dream of the Venetian boy, who wanted to see art extended to the people.

At age 19, he presented an ambitious project to President Kennedy, where he invited four of the biggest artists and curators to create a monumental show. This project, ‘Quartetto’ included works by Joesph Beuys, Enzo Cucchi, Bruce Nauman and Luciano Fabro.

In 1995, when Taiwan contacted him to curate a show of its artists in a parallel exhibition to the Venice Biennale, Grandis proposed that the guest country could be included in the biennale. However, it was displayed outside the Giardini due to lack of space. What started as one country outside that space and 37 countries inside the Giardini, has evolved to over 200 to 300 countries outside and fewer inside. Recently he curated at the Azarbaijan Biennale, where the work of New York-based Pakistani artist Khalil Chishtee is being shown.

Grandis admits that he is not an artist, an art critic or even a curator. He simply creates, not ‘curates’, for he is the conceiver of ideas. Like ‘OPEN’, he “was open to a metaphor of possibility, to illustrate the perfect mechanism of open-air art that can grow infinitely because it is flexible and strong.”

Published in Dawn, EOS, November 5th, 2017