Excerpts of an exclusive interview with Jitish Kallat

Ashoke Nag of The Economic Times had an exclusive talk with India’s topmost contemporary artist. Here we reproduce a part of it.

His formative years and whether he always wanted to become an artist:
I was born in Mumbai in 1974 and grew up in what one might call middle-class, suburbia. The parenting that I received was quite focused on middle-class values, and education was always at the center of things. I was interested in mass-media, advertising etc and joined art school with the intention of pursuing that path. Within a month of joining Sir J.J. School of Art, I found my true calling and decided to become an artist.

His first break as an artist:
I feel it happened from a student exhibition during my fourth year at art school, when one of my pieces was acquired by Deutsche Bank. Usually, the bank would only acquire mid-career to older artists, but surprisingly they also had this up in their lobby. A German curator who visited the bank then, tracked me down at art school. He invited me to be part of an important show and also contribute to the conference where I read an essay titled ‘Are we Coca-colonised?’. Being just twenty-two at the time, it was a real learning experience.

On the varied mediums of artworks he creates:
The medium is really just a vehicle to germinate an idea. So, the realization of a piece as sculpture, photograph, painting or video, would be determined by what might best deliver the freight of metaphors and meanings that make up the work. I would think of myself simply as a member of civil society; of course, one’s preoccupation with deciphering and interpreting life can take the form of a painting, sculpture etc. So, these labels might be quite inevitable.

On genre of art he is exhibiting now:
I’m working on two key pieces at the moment, both quite diverse. One is the Pilane Sculpture Project in Sweden wherein the piece will occupy a running length of about 100 to 120 feet in an open landscape, which is interestingly a prehistoric graveyard. Embedded within the landscape would be a single line that would read, ‘WHEN WILL YOU BE HAPPY’. Each alphabet will be a 6 feet sculpture, shaped like a bone, almost like an unearthed relic found during an archeological excavation. Yet another major piece of mine, ‘Public Notice3’ is slated to open at a major American museum on 9/11 this year.

On the astronomical rise in art price boom:
At one level, given the quality of art that was being made in India, it was highly undervalued until about five years ago. Globally speaking, one has to see the rise in value in the context of the general realignment of the world and India’s sphere of influence on the planet as an emerging power. That has created a deep interest in everything Indian and we see that interest extending to the art market as well. But, as we now know, the art world and its markets go through cycles of infatuation, so one should take neither attention nor neglect too seriously.

On the contemporary art scene:
The art scene in India has gained tremendous internal momentum and I only see more and more people getting involved with the field of contemporary art. As the circumference of the Indian World grows, I hope the institutions — museums and art schools — as well as the media grow and operate in a more enlightened fashion.