Jitish Kallat

Jitish Kallat’s installations, sculptures, and flat works refer directly to the socio-economic landscape in his native Mumbai, using components of the urban community to reflect upon injustices seen at the poverty level. His paintings are often colorful and highly graphic, mounted upon sculpture facsimiles from India’s famous ruins. The artist regularly uses text, including speeches and letters from Ghandi, to address history and the remaining stagnation in Mumbai head-on. His sculptures similarly consider symbols attached to India, be it the rupee or a child selling books on the street, and the ways in which these elements have transformed in the globalized community. The housing and transportation crisis in India, caste and communal tension, and government accountability appear in Kallat’s work consistently. “Universal ideals and shedding light on the ‘other’” remain important inspiration for the artist and propel his practice into the global conversation about economic and social buoyancy.

Kallat has exhibited at institutions including Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, Saatchi Gallery, London, Musee d’art contemporain de Lyon, France, MAXXI, Rome, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Tate Modern, London, Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne, GEM Museum of Contemporary Art, the Hague, and Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, Sydney, among others. He was also the curator of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale in India in 2014.