Ranbir KALEKA

Arario Gallery Cheonan is pleased to present a large-scale solo exhibition by the Indian artist Ranbir Kaleka (b. 1953) from July 3rd to August 19th 2012. With over 30 years of media art practice, Kaleka is a representative artist of the Indian contemporary art world. Combining painting and video, his works have been exhibited in the last 10 years in museums and galleries in major cities such as Venice, Berlin, Vienna, New York and Sydney. As his first solo exhibition in Korea, this exhibition explores the unique art world of Ranbir Kaleka.

Kaleka’s media works project video on large paintings. Paintings have physical attributes like weight and texture, and accumulation in layers of color pigment on paintings increases the darkness of color. On the other hand, video—which has a spatial element as a continuation of an image made of light—has the complete opposite characteristics of being intangible, fleeting, and becoming lighter with more layers of light. By mixing the two contradictory mediums, the artist amplifies the inherent nature of each medium, at times layering or overlapping them, and re-creating a completely new image. Moreover, by overlaying two different notions of time—the still time in painting and time of continuity in video—the artist creates a surreal and dream-like space-time. The essential focus in Kaleka’s work is not only his unique methodology in working with video, but the narrative itself in the video work. The narratives usually focus on issues that often arise throughout India, where the artist grew up, such as the daily life of Indians, or migrant workers and their missing children. Kaleka’s works of magical realism crosses over contrasting worlds, such as the locality of India vs. globalism, nature vs. man-made, and reality based on the artist’s personal experiences vs. symbolic illusions.

The work which most clearly demonstrates the unique traits of Kaleka’s oeuvre is Not From Here (2009), a six-minute video projection on painting which deals with the issue of over a hundred million migrant workers in India. The people that appear in the work are laborers that wander around the city, with barely noticeable presence or record of existence. They walk out of their own bodies in the painting, vanishing after having left only just their physical trace. Their body is expressed in a silhouette but their luggage on the ground is depicted in detail. In contrast to the faint impressions of the people, these objects of surrealistic presence arouse an unfamiliar feeling. When the video is almost over, whistling sound forecasts their re-appearance. Following the whistling, trains of the future and the past carrying new passengers come in like a fantasy.

Kaleka’s recent work Forest (2009-2012) reflects the artist’s meditation on ‘regeneration’ in the midst of a period of confusion and troubles. Black burnt-down ground is exposed beneath the flowers on the field, on which a man is whipping himself in atonement for his sins. When the man gets up and walks away, he turns into an animation character. Although the detailed rendering of the trees on the field seems to juxtapose with the man and others who are moving about busily across the forest, they soon overlap on top of the tree and express one image. A desk emerges on the field, symbolizing knowledge, and the lion sitting in front of the desk symbolizes the patron saint of knowledge. However, when confusion and troubles roll in, the library is set on fire and the lion is forced to leave by the power of destruction. The man saves the books from the library up in flames, and studies them. As knowledge is built up, a new city is generated in the same spot, and a baby lion walks into the new city.

Ranbir Kaleka has chosen the Academy Award winning composer Elliot Goldethal to create the music for his video. Famous for his often intense experimentation, intelligent nuances and unconventional techniques and processes, Goldenthal is considered "way ahead" of his contempories. His ability to blend various musical styles and techniques in original inventive ways makes him perfect for this particular project. Even while studying at the Manhatten School of Music in the 70s, Goldenthal has been already experimenting with unusual musical ways, preparing him for the much acclaimed success he would later receive. Elliot Goldenthal has won numerous awards including an Oscar for Frida, a Golden Globe and three Grammys.

Kaleka’s work invites the audience to the third space-time he has created, as the audience immerses in a flood of broadened aural visual experience and emotions. Furthermore, Kaleka’s work provides the opportunity for the viewer to meditate upon the artist’s outlook on the problems in India society, and goes on further to initiate a deeper contemplation on our own life.

About the Artist
Ranbir Kaleka was born in Punjab in 1953. He studied at The College of Art, Punjab University, and at Royal College of Art in London. Following his first solo exhibition at Art Today Gallery in New Delhi in 1995, Kaleka has held numerous solo exhibitions including in Bose Pacia Gallery in New York in 2005 and in Spertus Museum in Chicago and Volte Gallery in Mumbai in 2007. Kaleka has also participated in many group exhibitions, including Urban Manners at Hangar Bicocca in Milan and HORN PLEASE: The Narrative in Contemporary Indian Art in Berlin Art Museum in 2007, Art Video Lounge in Art Basel Miami Beach and Hungry God: Indian Contemporary Art in Museum of Modern Art in Busan in 2006, iCon: Contemporary Indian Art in Venice Biennale and Edge of Desire: Recent Art in India in New York Asia Society in 2005, and Culturgest-Lisbon and Zoom! Art in Contemporary India in Lisbon in 2004. Kaleka currently lives and works in New Delhi.

In collaboration with Volte Gallery