LETTER FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Novelist Graham Greene once observed, “Cinema has to appeal to millions.” It is probably this need for a mass draw that precludes film as a great art form on par with theatre, literature, or painting. This need not be the case as we know that film is capable of art of the highest order. It is this dilemma that we found ourselves contending with popular actor, Hrithik Roshan, as he posed for the cover of our Art Special. Roshan is conscious of how Bollywood measures success largely by box office returns, but prefers to let passion guide his decisions. He surrounds himself with art in many forms, whether it’s the prolific S.H. Raza or graffiti artists Daku and Banksy. The energetic evocation of art can neither be licensed nor tamed. It is this courage and transience that is the spirit of the Kochi Muziris Biennale in its third edition. With an intention to create multiple narratives to look at the worlds that are seemingly outside, like poetry, it is all about intersection, introspection and interaction with artistic practices. Spice has curated a list of four special artists who presented at the Biennale and exemplify this spirit. From the southern outpost of art-soaked Kochi, Spice travelled to Philadelphia, where the city, and more specifically, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, installed the newest avatar of what was once rubble in Madurai, in October this year. The fully restored Madana Gopala Swamy Temple Hall now stands as a stunning centrepiece of the South Asian galleries here—the only pre-modern temple mandap to exist outside of India. American Adeline Pepper Gibson purchased 60 pieces of granite, thought to be rubble, by local Madurai authorities back in 1912. Gibson shipped these magnificent carved portions that belonged to the Madurai temple complex of 1560 back to the United States where a costume pageant, with over 100 Philadelphians and an orchestra welcomed “the gods of India to the shores of America.” As history found home in Philadelphia, artist Sudarshan Shetty found inspiration in folk to furnish his most recent work A

Story A Song; a set of films and wooden structures created in association with the Rolls Royce Art Programme. Appropriating a lot of conventions of Hindi cinema such as music and melodrama, he tells and retells the folktale through two films which he screens simultaneously on two different screens side by side. If Shetty’s dramatic artwork caught Spice’s attention, we were also impressed by haute horologist Breitling’s passion for flying. One of the few remaining independent watch brands, Breitling has played a crucial role in the development of the chronograph, being the first chronograph in space when Scott Carpenter orbited the Earth three times aboard the Aurora 7 capsule, in 1962, with a Navitimer on his wrist. Apart from a tour of the Breitling manufacture in Grenchen, Switzerland, Spice took in a quick visit to five of the top Swiss boarding schools. We rounded off our sojourn with a trip down memory lane as the iconic Ford Mustang completes 50 years. On the soft bed of luxury, innovation remains the quilted passion that defines ageless style and timeless appeal. (Aroon Purie)