EDITED BY DIVYA MENON

WHAT TO TALK ABOUT THIS MONTH

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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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