Jitish kallat ahaan kallat
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The anniversary issue
Jitish Kallat looked at an auto rickshaw and saw in it a work of art. The 33-year-old saw in it not a malevolent force that is as tenacious and crafty as a weed, but he recognized in its bare structure the violence of a mob, the humour of its shape, and the necessity of its function.
Kallat’s Autosaurus Tripous, a skeletal structure that resembles the carcass of an auto rickshaw, is made up of what seems like the bones of a prehistoric animal. In fact, the sculpture was created from fibreglass fabrications of the bones of several kinds of animals; the overall effect seems humorous, yet you’re not sure why you are laughing. “This redundant vehicle is the carrier of several themes. It is supposed to be burlesque, grotesque and arabesque at the same time. I was inspired by undesirable images in the media of torched vehicles during riots, and at the same time it looks like an unearthed relic,” says Kallat.
All out of the three-edition work of Autosaurus have been sold to private collections; two went at the ShContemporary for a quarter of a million dollars. An artist’s proof of the work will be on display at Chemould Prescott gallery for Kallat’s first Indian solo in two years, called Sweatopia. The show is an accumulation of Kallat’s works over the p
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(Images via Yahoo Images)
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KOCHI: One day in February 2005, artist Jitish Kallat went to the Khandelwal Nursing home in Bandra, Mumbai to see his wife, Reena. She was nine months pregnant.
When he entered the room, he saw that his wife was in deep pain. As he reached forward to console her, Jitish fainted and fell on the bed. It took a while for Jitish to be revived.
The pregnancy had been an overwhelming experience for him. “I remember how wonderstruck Jitish was when he saw the first sonography,” says Reena.
And despite the fainting fit, Jitish was present when Reena gave birth to a boy called Ahaan. “The birth of Ahaan was the high point of our lives,” says Reena.
Jitish and Reena had been classmates at the JJ School of Art in Mumbai. But it was not a typical romance. “It was about sharing our interests and spending time, more in libraries than anywhere else,” says Reena. “We would visit galleries, and meet friends from the theatre and art worlds. There was a lot of learning, growth and mutual understanding.”
But Reena did not agree with all that Jitish said or did. Inspired by the classic manifesto on art by American sculptor Claes Oldenburgh, Jitish and a fellow student did a performance in the class, where they mocked the JJ School and insinuated that it was 20 years behind, in ter