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Lot Essay
'Scale is merely one of the many tools one can deploy in the creation of meaning, and decisions such as big, small, lifesize, etc., are as much acts of meaning creation as they may be retinal or aesthetic considerations'
(J. Kallat, quoted in The Asian Art Newspaper, February 2010, reproduced at https://www.asianartnewspaper.com/article/profilejitish-kallat).
Jitish Kallat's monumental Public Notice 2 recalls the historic speech delivered by Mahatma Gandhi, on the eve of the 400 mile Salt March to Dandi, India in March 1930 to protest against the salt tax instituted by British colonial rule. Part of the Indian Freedom Struggle, this march would culminate in Gandhi's direct disobeying of the law that prohibited Indians from collecting, producing or selling salt, a staple in the Indian diet. Reaching Dandi 24 days after he made this speech, Ghandi collected a small lump of natural salt out of the mud, for which he was arrested. Tens of thousands of supporters followed him in this act of defiance, leading to nationwide arrests.
One of the most significant works of art from one of the most prominent Indian artists of his generation, Public Notice 2 has a universal and contemporary resonance, and was exhibited in the Hall of Nations in Washington D.C. in 2011. Every word of Gandhi's rallying speech has been reimagined and recreated in a bone shaped alphabet, which are both redolent of relics and draw attention to the life and death importance of the words that they spell. Full of concern for how the British might retaliate, Gandhi vehemently condones any temptation to violence, beseeching his fellow revolutionaries to remain peaceful. Placed on saffron yellow walls in blocks that resemble pages of a vast book, each letter asserts the speech's importance.
Of this work Kallat has said: 'Within my practice, Public Notice 2 links up with two key antecedents, Public Notice (2003) and Detergent (2004), both works wherein a historical speech is summoned as the central armature of the work. Blurred and sometimes forgotten due to the passage of time, the historical speech is fore-grounded and held up as an apparatus to grade our feats and follies as nations, as humankind.
The speech has within it several themes that may aid our ailing world, plagued as it is with aggression. In today's terror-infected world, where wars against terror are fought at prime television time, voices such as Gandhi's stare back at us like discarded relics. The entire speech will be constructed out of about 4500 recreations of bones shaped like alphabets. Each alphabet in this speech, like a misplaced relic will hold up the image of violence in clinical clarity even as their collective chorus makes a plea for peace.
Within the Indian context as well, we have the worst instance of subversion of Gandhi's words in the year 2002 within his own home state of Gujarat. The historic Dandi March and the speech were delivered not far from the site where India saw one of the worst communal riots and bloodshed since the Indian Independence' (J. Kallat, reproduced at https://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/artpages/jitish_kallat_public4 .htm,[ accessed 4th June 2013]).
(J. Kallat, quoted in The Asian Art Newspaper, February 2010, reproduced at https://www.asianartnewspaper.com/article/profilejitish-kallat).
Jitish Kallat's monumental Public Notice 2 recalls the historic speech delivered by Mahatma Gandhi, on the eve of the 400 mile Salt March to Dandi, India in March 1930 to protest against the salt tax instituted by British colonial rule. Part of the Indian Freedom Struggle, this march would culminate in Gandhi's direct disobeying of the law that prohibited Indians from collecting, producing or selling salt, a staple in the Indian diet. Reaching Dandi 24 days after he made this speech, Ghandi collected a small lump of natural salt out of the mud, for which he was arrested. Tens of thousands of supporters followed him in this act of defiance, leading to nationwide arrests.
One of the most significant works of art from one of the most prominent Indian artists of his generation, Public Notice 2 has a universal and contemporary resonance, and was exhibited in the Hall of Nations in Washington D.C. in 2011. Every word of Gandhi's rallying speech has been reimagined and recreated in a bone shaped alphabet, which are both redolent of relics and draw attention to the life and death importance of the words that they spell. Full of concern for how the British might retaliate, Gandhi vehemently condones any temptation to violence, beseeching his fellow revolutionaries to remain peaceful. Placed on saffron yellow walls in blocks that resemble pages of a vast book, each letter asserts the speech's importance.
Of this work Kallat has said: 'Within my practice, Public Notice 2 links up with two key antecedents, Public Notice (2003) and Detergent (2004), both works wherein a historical speech is summoned as the central armature of the work. Blurred and sometimes forgotten due to the passage of time, the historical speech is fore-grounded and held up as an apparatus to grade our feats and follies as nations, as humankind.
The speech has within it several themes that may aid our ailing world, plagued as it is with aggression. In today's terror-infected world, where wars against terror are fought at prime television time, voices such as Gandhi's stare back at us like discarded relics. The entire speech will be constructed out of about 4500 recreations of bones shaped like alphabets. Each alphabet in this speech, like a misplaced relic will hold up the image of violence in clinical clarity even as their collective chorus makes a plea for peace.
Within the Indian context as well, we have the worst instance of subversion of Gandhi's words in the year 2002 within his own home state of Gujarat. The historic Dandi March and the speech were delivered not far from the site where India saw one of the worst communal riots and bloodshed since the Indian Independence' (J. Kallat, reproduced at https://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/artpages/jitish_kallat_public4 .htm,[ accessed 4th June 2013]).