Jitish Kallat - Contemporary Art Evening Sale London Friday, October 16, 2009 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Arario Gallery, Seoul

  • Exhibited

    Busan Museum of Modern Art, Indian Contemporary Art – Hungry God, 2006

  • Catalogue Essay

    Jitish Kallat manipulates the languages of pop and agitprop to aesthetically and intellectually address human struggle and survival in contemporary India.  In his paintings, sculptures, photographs and installations, Kallat presents imagery which purposely thwarts the “slickness” of advertisements and graphic design pervading today’s visual media, instead showcasing a gritty realism taken from the rain streaked building facades and packed streets of Mumbai, Kallat’s home. In a statement by the artist about Suffix (Herbaceous Perennial) -1, Kallat explains:"Suffix (Herbaceous Perennial)-1 refers back to the suite of paintings I made in 2005 titled ‘Herbarium (Annual-Perennial)’; they also derive from many of my earlier works where the city of Mumbai is a recurrent theme, often treated as a consistent theatre of survival and mortality. The painting is mounted on sculptural supports which are shaped like inverted bird legs.
    Unlike a whole range of my works made between 1998 and 2004, the painfully claustrophobic image of the crowded city is converted into human scaled black flowers: each colliding petal is morphed into a face. The inverted bird legs are appended to this bittersweet imagery like a potent suffix. They animate the picture and evoke a variety of images, including that of birds held in captivity, tethered and hung by their legs. The reading of this work can extend beyond my engagement with the city and broaden as a kind of tangential history painting, speaking about the inequitable pecking order of the world. Another dimension to this assemblage, enshrined in its title, is the notion of resilience that is a recurrent motif in my work: ‘Herbaceous Perennial’ are plants whose growth dies down annually but whose roots survive." (Jitish Kallat in conversation with Veronica Collins, September 1, 2008)

42

Suffix (Herbaceous Perennial) - 1

2006
Triptych: acrylic and glitter on canvas, painted fibreglass.
229 x 514 x 25.4 cm. (90 x 202 x 10 in).
Signed, titled and dated '2006 JITISH KALLAT SUFFIX (HERBACEOUS PERENNIAL)-1' on the overlap.

Estimate
£120,000 - 180,000 

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

17 Oct 2009
London