Jitish Kallat

(b. 1948, Mumbai, India)

Jitish Kallat’s works straddle the intersections of science, historical memory, existential inquiry, and the rhythms of the natural world, prompting reflections on our planetary presence and place in the cosmos. A consistent approach in Kallat’s practice involves shifting focal lengths – across space and time – to reframe and comprehend the immediate and the imminent. 

Over the years, Kallat has developed a ‘vocabulary of studio rituals’, mediated by natural elements, time, and the use of dates, measurements, numbers, and other archival materials as sense-making devices. His diverse body of work across media spans abstraction, schematic forms, historical texts, and varied modes of representation, often juxtaposing the everyday with the cosmic, the present with the historic, and the terrestrial with the celestial. 

Jitish Kallat has held solo exhibitions at prominent institutions such as the Art Institute of Chicago, Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, Frist Art Museum in Nashville, Ian Potter Museum of Art in Melbourne, Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum in Mumbai, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, amongst others. 

His mid-career survey, Here After Here 1992-2017, curated by Catherine David, took place at the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi in 2017. Kallat’s work has been exhibited at global institutions, including Tate Modern, London; Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin; Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane; Kunstmuseum, Bern; Serpentine Galleries, London; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; and Pirelli Hangar Bicocca, Milan. He has participated in the biennales of Venice, Gwangju, Havana, Curitiba, and Kiev, as well as the Fukuoka, Guangzhou, and Asia-Pacific triennials.

As the Curator and Artistic Director of the 2014 Kochi-Muziris Biennale, he curated Whorled Explorations. His other curatorial projects include I draw, therefore I think for SouthSouth in 2021, followed by Tangled Hierarchy at the John Hansard Gallery in Southampton and Tangled Hierarchy 2, presented by Kiran Nadar Museum of Art at the Invitations Programme of the 5th Kochi-Muziris Biennale in 2022. 

Kallat lives and works in Mumbai, India.