JITISH KALLAT (B. 1974)
PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF WILLEM BAARS (LOTS 12-43) "Willem Baars is a critic, curator and gallerist, an expert on Piet Mondrian and Van Gogh and an indomitable spirit in my life for the last 20 years. He was one of the first gallerists from Europe to begin working with a new generation of Indian artists. He truly believed in the potential of the scene very early on and lived with Indian artists in Delhi, Mumbai and other locations in order to experience their process first hand. A dear friend, Willem Baars celebrates both art and life and he has shared our culture with the world." —- Bose Krishnamachari "I have known Willem as a dear friend and a great supporter of Contemporary Indian Art since I first met him in 1993 in Amsterdam. His generosity and a keen interest in my work, at the time when the audience was hard to find, helped me a great deal. I remember our intense conversations in my studio on his frequent visits to Mumbai which in many ways held a very different mirror to my work at the time." — Sudarshan Shetty "I have known Willem for almost two decades now and he has been a consistent presence in the contemporary art world" — Subodh Gupta "Willem is the North Star I found in the west. Our relationship has been very special in every sense. He gave me his friendship to seek the world in a different light." — Riyas Komu In conversation with Willem Baars “I have never been a ‘collector’ collector. It came to me through relationships. I never went to India to collect.” Between the 1990s and now Willem Baars has made the journey from a penniless patron to contemporary collector, gallerist and taste maker. His exceptional collection is the product of passion, a keen eye, chance and, perhaps the most significant influence, his friendships with so many of the artists. For the likes of artists such as Jitish Kallat, Riyas Komu, Subodh Gupta, Bharti Kher, Sudarshan Shetty, Bhupen Khakhar and Bose Krishnamachari he provided a platform in Europe to display their work, in many instances for the first time. Amsterdam became the unlikely artistic and creative haven for Indian contemporary artists from the 1990s. From Rembrandt to Raza, Willem walks us through his motivations and early experiences in India and Amsterdam and how he came to be such an impactful figure in the Indian Contemporary Art world. Why Indian Art? I will give an Indian answer, it is Karma! I went as a backpacker when I was 19 to India; at the same time I was studying Art History back home in Holland. I came back six months later and it was maybe a coincidence that there were two galleries in Holland that specialised in Indian Art at that very early stage. I think at that time there was nowhere else in Europe that had galleries for Indian Art! I had a friend working in the Foundation For Indian Artists in Holland and was invited to the openings and it was there I first met Indian artists. Having just been in India it was easy to relate to them and this soon grew into friendships. Sudarshan (Shetty) was the first I met. Having met these artists in Amsterdam, it gave me a very good reason to go back to India. I went back in 1992, 1993 to see them and from that time on I got involved in the Indian art scene. I met Subodh (Gupta) and other artists who lived in Delhi and it took off from there. I went back every year sometimes twice a year. The art scene was a small inner circle so it was very easy to meet everyone. In a very short period I knew everybody and it was simple as that at the beginning, I was only 23 at the time. I always had a keen interest, I still have, of the historical Avant-Garde movements in Europe in the 1920s. I had this feeling in India of being surrounded by people who were full of energy and hope that must have been almost the same. Did you encounter the Indian Modernist Masters? I was working with young artists, they were my friends and were what was happening at the time. Then there were the Old Masters who were still alive so I met a few of them. I met (M.F.) Husain and (Tyeb) Mehta. It was such a small world both the Old Masters and the contemporary artist were all within handreach. They were all within one handshake. You went to an opening in Delhi or Bombay and you saw the same people. Meeting these people had an impact. I began to use my expertise and Western Art history knowledge and combined this with what I encountered in India. I always had a particular interest in using my western vocabulary to work with art that comes from a different culture. India already had its own art history of the 20th century that you could compare to the West in a way. I always found it funny that the modernist Indian artists were referred to as the “Old Masters”. Coming from Holland, the “Old Masters” refers to artists like Rembrandt, Vermeer and Frans Hals. In India they were talking about Raza and Souza and Husain as the Masters. This was very interesting. I saw my first Gaitonde in the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi and saw he was making Rothko like paintings even in the 50s before he was even aware of Rothko and Western art. That struck me at the time. It was the same with Raza. I come from Holland where we are all sons and daughters of Mondrian. And there is this guy (Raza) who drew upon Hindu philosophy where there is also an abstract geometric language. He made paintings that I could almost relate to from my own Western background even though they were very different. You have described yourself as “not a typical collector“ of Contemporary Indian Art? I was young and had hardly any money. I wasn’t collecting. If I had a bit of money I would try and help and support these artists. When the artists came to Amsterdam they stayed in my small student house. I had a mattress and they all slept on the floor no problem. Here in Amsterdam we all bicycle so whether it was Bharti or Subodh or Bhupen, I had Bhupen on the back of my bicycle many times; I remember cycling with Sudarshan and Bharti — that’s what we do in Amsterdam! It was also important for them to see contemporary Western art; they had the chance to go to the museums here, in London and America. They picked up in a sense new luggage which they brought back with them. One of the first works I bought was by Jogen Chowdhury. I have one still in my house which I keep for sentimental reasons. When I was 25 or 26 I used to pick up Francis Newton Souza works and sell them in India which would pay for my trips. It was more significant to me that I was buying these works very early on and recognising their importance. When I saw my first Gaitonde in 1992 and 1993 I thought, “this could hang in any European or American museum.” I always trusted my own opinion. The same with Francis Newton Souza, I thought these were very interesting works for a guy doing them in the 50s and 60s. But nobody in the West was picking it up. But that’s how you buy art—you buy with your heart and not your wallet. Draw upon your own knowledge and trust your eyes. Why was Amsterdam a European road stop for young Indian artists? It was a question of luck — it seemed with Holland it was very much a case of the right time and the right place and right people. I think it started as coincidence and then you build expertise. […] As soon as I started the gallery I started to show Sudarshan (Shetty) and Jitish (Kallat) — I first showed Jitish in 1998. I was trying to get people interested in something that was a kind of virgin area where people had no idea what was happening. Amsterdam is a small art scene in comparison to London, New York or Paris and as there were no galleries from these cities which came over to India at this point. Yes! I was one of the first to provide a platform. We had already the Foundation of Indian Artists which was also showing Indian artists including Subodh, Bharti, Bhupen and Vivan, so they already had a platform besides what I was doing. It is funny that a country like Holland was such a platform for these artists. Willem Baars Projects started out with the idea of being a mobile gallery. I did not want to be limited by one space. The projects started with separate spaces where I could do site specific things. This started in 2003/4. For example the Everything exhibition I did with Bose, was a good example of that. We used a beautiful building in the centre of Amsterdam which was empty at the time. I was discussing with Bose in Bombay and I said to him “Bose, you invite 12 young artists who mostly haven’t shown in Europe and America and two or three established artists and we show them there” and Bose came up with everything. This was the start of the concept. Bombay Boys was the same. It was a collaboration with this famous architectural studio here in Amsterdam called Concrete which is huge in this part of Europe. They designed something for the exhibition. Will you keep working with Indian Art? Absolutely! That will never go away, I am very much attached to India and India is attached to me. The artists are close friends who I consider like family which is more important than anything else. India is a place to go to see family.
JITISH KALLAT (B. 1974)

Suffix (Herbaceous Perennial) - 7

细节
JITISH KALLAT (B. 1974)
Suffix (Herbaceous Perennial) - 7
titled ‘Suffix (Herbaceous Perennial) – 7’ (upper left); further dated, inscribed and titled ‘2007 JITISH KALLAT SUFFIX (HERBACEOUS PERENNIAL) – 7 / 2007 / JITISH KALLAT’ (on the reverse)




acrylic and glitter on canvas with two painted fibreglass supports
canvas: 64 1/8 x 80¼ in. (162.8 x 203.8 cm.)
each support: 21¾ x 14 x 9 in. (55.2 x 35.5 x 22.8 cm.)
Executed in 2007
来源
Acquired directly from the artist
展览
Amsterdam, Willem Baars Projects, Bombay Boys, 2007

荣誉呈献

Damian Vesey
Damian Vesey

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拍品专文

"Mr. Kallat’s florals would make Des Esseintes covetous as each is composed of the hallucinogenic faces of human beings, their features coalescing into one another, as if the victims of a monstrous industrial accident or the results of an overzealous amusement park ride that has careened into a crowd of onlookers after snapping free from its cables. The “flowers”, so to speak, are cradled in a network of capillary tubes or perhaps lymph nodes, further accentuating the sensation of observing the physiological causes for either multiple personality disorder of the disjointed language of a fever patient." (P. Nagy, Jitish Kallat: Panic Acid, Singapore, 2005, pp. 9-10)

With a visual language derived from the city of his birth, Jitish Kallat explores India’s negotiation of post-millennial national identity through his paintings. In Suffix (Herbaceous Perennial) – 7, the artist represents Mumbai as a microcosm, examining recurring issues relevant to the city. In this painting, Kallat depicts two blossoming flowers or herbs, their tightly packed petals being made up of the faces of the masses or denizens of the city. Playing with the idea of the city repeatedly giving birth to clones rather than individuals, Kallat attempts to highlight the many contradictions that he sees in the growing economic metropolis. A spewing gargoyle painted on the flowering plants acts as a contorted reference to the grand Neo-Gothic architecture of Victoria Terminus, Mumbai’s busiest train station through which millions of commuters pass each day. Often including a variation of this gargoyle in his works, here Kallat emphasises on the physical and psychological burdens the common man faces on a daily basis in Mumbai.

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