Well-known Mumbai based artist Jitish Kallat talks about his first museum solo show at the Ian Potter Museum of Art

‘A solemn scripture and a playful sculpture’

Well-known Mumbai based artist Jitish Kallat talks about his first museum solo show at the Ian Potter Museum of Art

In the new show, you have reconfigured your well-known installation, Circa, first produced for the Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai. What was that about and what is the work against the new backdrop like? Circa is made in pigmented resin and steel. When installed, it begins to stitch itself around and within the architecture of a building. The appearance of scaffolding is symbolic of change and transformation. At the Bhau Daji Lad Museum, it reinvoked the history of the museum and underscored themes related to our city. At the Ian Potter Museum, Circa infilterates all levels of the museum. It is also seen in conjunction with a display of Indian antiquities in the ‘Classics and Archeology’ gallery where its strategic assembly within a heavily guarded storage space, that is left open, evokes several unexplained narratives.
On the scaffolding used, you are said to have been inspired by the imagery on the central railway station. Could you elaborate? The bamboo surface has historically also been used as a scribal medium on which to inscribe a text or narrative. Circa has imagery of mythic sculptural reliefs — of animals devouring each other — that were referenced from the porch of the Victoria Terminus building, which two million people enter and exit everyday. I sometimes think of Circa as a solemn scripture on survival. At other times, it is a playful sculpture that pretends to be a found object.
Is this your first solo show in an
Australian museum? What does it feel like? I have exhibited consistently in Australia for almost 15 years, in museums such as Art Gallery of New South Wales, Gallery of Modern Art and Gallery 4A, among others. I’ve had solo shows at Gallery GBK and leading institutions such as SCAF, but this is my first museum solo and I’ve really enjoyed this process.
How long did it take to complete? As a sculpture, Circa has taken a year--and-a-half to make, but the show was developed in about six months. Given the nature of the show, many works, including a burnt text and large wall drawings made with mirrors, wet clay sculptures with wheat sprouts etc., had to be developed on the museum site. Installing the show took half a month and the show is on for half a year.
Are you already thinking about the next body of work? What will it be like? I’m working on several interesting projects, including a massive permanent public installation in Lower Austria and solos at Kunstforum Wien, Haunch of Venison London and at a museum in the Far East, among others. This is interesting, as no two projects are similar in either scale or context, allowing me to think in different registers and explore unknown facets of my being.

Jitish Kallat