Riyaz Komu

Riyas Komu is an Indian multimedia artist and curator based in Mumbai. He has invested his time in art education and developing art infrastructure in India. Komu's works are inspired by social conflicts and political movements and topics like migration and displacement. His hyper-realistic oil portraits of people resemble socialist-realist propaganda art, with one of his portraits titled Why Everybody should Look Like Mao.

In 2007, Komu was one of two artists from India selected for the 52nd Venice Biennale by curator Robert Storr. Later, he went on to represent the Iranian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2015. Komu also participated in the Jogja Biennale, Indonesia, 2011.

Early life Riyas completed his Bachelors & Masters in Painting from the Sir J. J. School of Art in Mumbai in 1999. He is the Ideator of Kochi- Muziris Biennale and co-founder of Kochi-Muziris Biennale Foundation that established in 2010. He co-curated the first edition of Kochi-Muziris Biennale in 2012 and has been the Director of Programmes of the Kochi Biennale Foundation in the year of 2012, 2014 and 2016 and in this capacity, he has initiated the Students' Biennale, Children's Biennale (later named as ABC, Art by Children), Artists Cinema, Music of Muziris, Video Lab, Let's Talk series & History Now like Talks and Seminars, Pepper House Residency & Exhibition

Initiatives Riyas been the Advisor and Visual Arts Curator for Serendipity Arts Festival in Goa in 2016 & 2017 and he has done extensive research trips in sub-continent and conceptualized and curated the 'Young Sub-Continent' project in 2016, 17 & 18 in Goa. He also curated the Kondotty Sufi Festival in 2019. In 2016 he started URU Art Harbour, a cultural hub in Mattancherry, Kochi, (Kerala) and curated shows which promote artists from the region focusing on Local Culture, Kerala's history of social action, Human migration and Maritime History. Uru Art Harbour also provides a well-supported artist in residency which includes exhibition and also engages with international artists. Komu co-curated first International Football Film Festival in India at Goa International Film Festival and Trivandrum International Film Festival in 2012. As an artist, he has many solo shows to his credit which includes, Faith Accompli, Mark Him, Related List, Safe to Light, Holy Shiver & Out of Place. Komu's works have been exhibited globally including South Africa, Brazil, France, Germany, UK, Italy, Korea, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, USA, China, UAE, Belgium, The Netherlands and Iran among others.

Amphibian Aesthetics In Amphibian Aesthetics , Riyas Komu, as the artistic director, extends the exhibition into a critical and dialogic space where art becomes an act of cultural negotiation. His intervention situates the works within a broader discourse that engages with memory, displacement, and the politics of representation, particularly in the context of Kochi’s layered histories. Through this vision, Komu does not merely assemble Midhun Mohan’s works but activates them—transforming the exhibition into a living archive where suppressed narratives and marginalized spiritual histories are given renewed presence. In alignment with the ethos of Aazhi Archives. Riyas frames Amphibian Aesthetics as a site of resistance and continuity, where artistic practice becomes a medium to question erasure and reimagine belonging. The curatorial approach is one that embraces the amphibian metaphor not just as an aesthetic idea, but as an ethical stance, one that inhabits thresholds, allowing multiple histories, beliefs, and identities to coexist, collide, and speak across time.

Exhibitions 2011 Inde, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France Contemporary Art from India, Helsinki Art Museum – The Tennis Palace, Helsinki, Finland 2010 INSIDE INDIA, Palazzo Saluzzo di Paesana, Turin, Italy Midnight's Children, Studio la Città, Verona, Italy Beyond Globalization, Beyond Art Space, Beijing, China Subrato to Cesar by Riyas Komu, Gallery Maskara, Maskara, Mumbai, India (solo) Safe to Light, Azad Art Gallery, Tehran, Iran (solo) 2009 Beyond Globalization, Beyond Art Space, Beijing, China Arco Art Fair, Madrid, Spain Threshold: Forging Narratives in South Asian Contemporary Art, Aicon Gallery, New York City Indian Popular Culture and beyond Alcala' 31, Madrid, Spain Sakshi Art Gallery, Mumbai, India (solo) 2008 Bodhi Berlin, Berlin, Germany (solo) MARK HIM (Second half), Gallery 88, Kolkata, India (solo) The Ghost of Souza, inaugural show in Bowery space, Aicon Gallery, New York City India Crossing, Studio la Città, Verona, Italy Frontlines: Notations from the Contemporary Indian Urban, Bodhi Berlin, Berlin, Germany 2007–2008 India Arte Oggi, Spazio Oberdan, Milan, Italy 2007 FRAME/GRID/ROOM/CELL, curated by Gayatri Sinha, Bodhi Art, Mumbai, India Art Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands I Fear, I believe, I desire, Gallery Espace, New Delhi, India Other, AICON Gallery, London, UK Annual show, Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai, India 52 International Art Exhibition, Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy Think with the Senses – Feel with the Mind. Art in the Present Tense, 52nd International Art Exhibition, Venice Biennale MARK HIM (First half), The Guild Art Gallery, Mumbai, India (solo) 2006 Systematic Citizen, Palette Art Gallery, New Delhi, India (solo) Faith Accompli, Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai, India (solo) Bronze, sculpture show, Rabindra Bhavan, New Delhi, India Art on the beach. Made by Indians, Plage de Pamplonne, Ramatuelle, St. Tropez, France On Difference #2, Kunstverein, Stuttgart, Germany Singapore Art Fair, Singapore Enrico Navarra, Paris, France Red Earth And The Pouring Rain, Lanxess ABS Gallery, Baroda, India Viart, New Delhi, India Strangeness, Anant Art Gallery, Kolkatta, India 2005 Span, Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai, India Endless Terrain, Lalit Kala Academy, Rabindra Bhavan, New Delhi, India Double-Enders, Jehangir Art Gallery and Museum Art Gallery, Mumbai, India Present Future, National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai, India Configurations, Anant Art Gallery, New Delhi, India Are we like this only?, Rabindra Bhavan, New Delhi, India Whose space is it anyway?, Gallery Espace, New Delhi, India Mannat Jali, Marine Drive, Mumbai, India Public Art Project, Gallery Chemould, Mumbai, India World Social Forum, Porto Alegre, Brazil KAAM, Aicon Gallery, New York and Palo Alto The Third Day, Lalit Kala Academy, Rabindra Bhavan, New Delhi presented by Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai, India (solo) GRASS, photography show, The Guild Art Gallery, Mumbai, India (solo) 2004 Group show during VASL Residency, Karachi, Pakistan Bombay Boys, Palette Art Gallery, New Delhi, India A New Mediatic Realism, Bayer ABS Gallery, Baroda, India Generation I, Saffron Art Gallery, Mumbai, India Mumbai x 17, Kashi Art Gallery, Cochin, India Anticipations, Jehangir Art Gallery and Museum Art Gallery, Mumbai, India RED, Palette Art Gallery, New Delhi, India 2003 Sarasu, Guild Art Gallery, Mumbai, India (solo) Unconditional, Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai, India (solo) Hilights, Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai, India Ideas and Images, National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai, India Art for Art/Switzerland meets India, Kalaghoda Art Festival, Mumbai, India Crossing Generations :Diverge, 40 years of Gallery Chemould, National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai, India Sarasu, photography show on Raja Ravi Verma Press, The Guild Art Gallery, Mumbai, India (solo) UNCONDITIONAL, Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai, India (solo) 2002–2003 AMBULANCE, Renaissance Art Gallery, Bangalor, Indiae (solo) Ambulance, Renaissance Art Gallery, Bangalore, India (solo) 2002 Asian Art Festival, Singapore Harmory Shows (2004–1999), Nehru Center, Mumbai, India Tribute to Picasso, Guild Art Gallery, Mumbai, India Ways of Resisting 1992– 2002, Sahmat/ Rabindra Bhavan, New Delhi, India Creative Space, Sakshi Gallery and India Habitat Center, New Delhi, India Words and Images, Guild Art Gallery and National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai, India Creative Space, Sakshi Gallery and India Habitat Center, New Delhi, India Harmory Shows (2004–1999), Nehru Center, Mumbai, India New Delhi Crosscurrents, Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai, India Engendering Images of Women, Art Gallery, Mumbai, India Excerpts from my diary, Fine Art Company, Mumbai, India The Human Factor, Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai, India 2000 Mumbai Metaphor, Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai, India Mumbai Metaphor, Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai, India Exile Longings, Lakeeren Art Gallery, Mumbai, India Memos of the New Millennium – Artists from the Moulting World, Birla Academy of Art & Culture, Mumbai, India Ideas and Images, National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai, India Moulting World, Birla Academy of Art & Culture, Mumbai 1999 Critics Choice, Ideas and Images, National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai, India 1998 He used to believe that EMS planted coconut tree in Kerala, installation, Sir J.J. School of Art, Mumbai, India

Awards K. K. Hebbar Foundation Society Scholarship 1997 to 1999 Bombay Art Society Award 1996 Maharashtra State Art Prize 1995 'Critic's Choice' at NGMA 1999