A view of the Avenue in Gothenburg with a statue of Poseidon

The carnival at Gothenburg, Sweden’s second largest city after Stockholm, between August 10 and 15 this year will coincide with a large exhibition of contemporary Indian art. The show will continue till September 15.

In 1927, Volvo Cars was founded in Gothenburg, which has a spectacular boulevard known as the Avenue. This 1.6-mile road, where the Gothenburg Museum of Art, the city’s theatre, the city library as well as the concert hall are located, is the scene of the annual carnival. It attracts about one million people from all over Europe. The Indian art exhibition will also be held on the road.

Titled Go India, it is the fruit of a cultural exchange programme between Emami Chisel Art and Aakriti Art Gallery, Calcutta, on the Indian side, and Vasa Konsthal and Gallery Scandinavia in Gothenburg along with Aschan & Co on the Swedish side. The Emami Group, the city of Gothenburg and the Culture Ministry of Sweden are the chief patrons of this project being organised in close collaboration with the Swedish Embassy in India.

It all began with the visit of Oscar Aschan, director of Oagallery, to Aakriti gallery’s GenNext exhibition and art camp at Emami Chisel in 2008, when he proposed the exchange programme to Vikram Bachhawat, director of Emami Chisel Art. Both groups started working towards it thereafter.

Oscar visited India three times when he established contacts with leading cultural personalities and representatives of various institutions. Later, the deputy mayor of Gothenburg, Elisabeth Rothenberg, visited Calcutta and finalised the cultural exchange programme.

The exchange programme began with an Indian fashion show held at the Elite Park Hotel, Gothenburg on May 8.

The Indian exhibition will be spread over six galleries and museums, some of which were established by rich businessmen, and the streets too. The show will be jointly curated by Amit Mukhopadhyay and Oscar Aschan. About 20 artists from all over India will participate and the works will range from paintings, sculptures, and drawings to installations and videos.

Some of the participating artists will be Baiju Parthan, Gigi Scaria, Pushpamala N, Mithu Sen, Chhatrapati Dutta, B.M. Kamath, G.R. Iranna, Tushar Joag, Akhil Chandra Das, Pankaj Panwar, Nobina Gupta, Probir Gupta, Nantu Behari Das, Mansoor Ali, Ketan Amin, Tapas Biswas and Sekhar Roy. Mithu Sen will present a sound installation along with drawings. Gigi, Tushar and Sumedh Rajendran will contribute digital prints.

Kaushik Mukhopadhyay will install a kinetic sculpture outside the Gothenburg Opera House. Mansoor Ali, Ketan Amin and Nantu Behari Das will display sculptures done in fibreglass, stainless steel and wood. A contemporary Swedish art exhibition will be held in Calcutta in December.