Hyphenated lives a walkthrough with reena saini kallat and nancy adajania
Early life
Reena Saini Kallat (b. 1973, Delhi, India) graduated from Sir J.J. School of Art, Mumbai in 1996 with a B.F.A. in painting. Her practice spanning drawing, photography, sculpture and video engages diverse materials, imbued with conceptual underpinnings. She is interested in the role that memory plays, in not only what we choose to remember but also how we think of the past. Using the motif of the rubberstamp both as object and imprint, signifying the bureaucratic apparatus, Kallat has worked with officially recorded or registered names of people, objects, and monuments that are lost or have disappeared without a trace, only to get listed as anonymous and forgotten statistics. In her works made with electrical cables, wires usually serving as conduits of contact that transmit ideas and information, become painstakingly woven entanglements that morph into barbed wires like barriers. Her ongoing series using salt as a medium explores the tenuous yet intrinsic relationship between the body and the oceans, highlighting the fragility and unpredictability of existence
Career
She has widely exhibited across the world in venues such as Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Kennedy Centre, Washington; Vancouver Art Gallery; Saatchi Gallery, London; SESC Pompeia and SESC Belenzino in Sao Paulo; Goteborgs Konsthall, Sweden; Helsinki City Art Museum, Finland; National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts; Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel; National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul; Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo; Casa Asia, Madrid and Barcelona; ZKM Karlsruhe in Germany; Campbelltown Arts Centre, Sydney; Hangar Bicocca, Milan; Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai; IVAM Museum, Spain; Busan MOMA; Kulturhuset, Stockholm; Kunsthaus Langenthal, Switzerland; Chicago Cultural Centre amongst many others. She lives and works in Mumbai.
Her works are part of several public and private collections including the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan; Vancouver Art Gallery, Canada; Initial Access (Frank Cohen Collection), UK; Fondazione Golinelli, Italy; Bhaudaji Lad Museum, Mumbai; National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi; Devi Art Foundation, New Delhi; Saatchi Gallery, London; Tiroche DeLeon Collection, Israel; Ermenegildo Zegna Group, Italy; JSW Foundation, Mumbai and Burger Collection, Hongkong amongst others.
Select solo exhibitions
Orchard of Home-grown Secrets, Gallery Chemould and Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai (1998)
Skin, Gallery Chemould, Mumbai and Art Inc. Gallery, New Delhi (2000)
Seven Faces of Dust, Chicago Radio, Mumbai (2002)
The Battlefield Is The Mind, Sakshi Gallery, Bangalore (2002)
Black Flute, Gallery Chemould, Mumbai 2004
Black Flute (And Other Stories), Nature Morte, New Delhi (2005)
Rainbow Of Refuse, Bodhi Art Gallery, Mumbai (2006)
Subject to Change without Notice, Walsh Gallery, Chicago (2008)
The Eye and The Mind: New Interventions in Indian Art, NGMA- Jaipur House, New Delhi(2016)
Artist residencies
In 2002 Kallat was an artist-in-residence in the Laurentian mountains of Quebec at the Boreal Art and Nature Centre in Canada. In 2011, the artist was awarded an IASPIS residency to work and study in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Art market
Reena Kallat is represented by Nature Morte and Gallery Chemould.
Awards
Kallat has been the recipient of a number of awards, including:
Gladstone Solomon Award (1995)
Bombay Art Society Merit Certificate (1996)
Second Prize Government Award, Sir Jamsetjee Jeejebhoy School of Art (1996)
Harmony Award (2005)
YFLO ZOYA Young Women Achievers Awards 2010-11, Delhi (2011)
ZegnArt Public Award in collaboration with Dr. Bhaudaji Lad Museum, Mumbai (2012)
Zee: Indian Women Awards in Arts & Culture category, Delhi (2016)
