The Print Out

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CONTRIBUTORS BIOS

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AMOL K. PATIL

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Amol K. Patil (b. 1987), a conceptual and performance artist, once said that his artwork is an ever reaching attempt to recapture the vibrating movement and sound of the ‘chawl’ architecture, which he grew up surrounded by. The ‘chawl’, a form of 5 storey social housing for mill and factory workers was built in the early 1900s, with many tenements fit close together and long verandahs connecting every door of children running on floorboards above, the gossiping voices from dimly lit tables under which men gather to play carrom, the man with a walking stick, the sound of termites eating into wood, wedding festivities, and rhythmically creaking beds.

 

After discovering his own affinity for performance art he explores, beyond his father’s work as a theatre activist, through the objects he found in old cupboards. An old dicta tape recorder, a walkman, and cassettes capture sounds and immigrant dialects his father must have recorded for his typed grassroots, avant-garde theatre scripts about the dilemma of living as a migrant within the city, performed within the industrial mill areas of Bombay, as well as the found handwritten songs of his poet grandfather. The songs come from a protest tradition since the 17th century called ‘Powada’, much in use before and after national independence, still found today, that not so much sing, but in rap form, spit out furious words, against the caste system, and the revolutionary spoken word histories of BR Ambedkar, the author of the Indian constitution, and the Dalit thinker who gave India roads out of caste and toward social equality.

 

He has participated in many national and international exhibitions such as Yokohama Triennale (2020); Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan, New Delhi (2019); The Showroom (2018); Tensta Konsthall (2017); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2017); Pune Biennale (2017); New Galerie, Paris (2016); Dakar Biennale (2016); Myymälä2, Helsinki (2015); Japan Foundation, Delhi (2015); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2014); International Artists Initiated, Glasgow (2014); International Video Art Festival, Lagos (2014); Para Site, Hong Kong (2014); Art Dubai Projects (2014); Kadist Art Foundation, Paris (2013); and the Transnational Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale (2013) among numerous others. He lives and works in Mumbai.

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GAGAN SINGH

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Gagan Singh (b.1975) is a Delhi based artist working in the medium of drawing. Through research in neuroscience, psychology, humour, eroticism and cognition, he explores certain key aspects of seeing, material and state of mind. Everyday activities play a significant role in his way of thinking & drawing.

 

His practice has been with site-specific works, interventions, making short duration films and artist books, along with sketchbooks and exploring how we think through them. He also looks at drawing as a form of conversation and provocation through works like the How to Do series.

 

Singh earned a Masters in Fine Arts from Kent Institute of Art & Design, Canterbury in 2005. His works have recently been exhibited by Foreign Objekt (2021) and Chatterjee and Lal, Mumbai (2020 and 2021). He has also conducted talks and workshops in Gallery Ark, Baroda (2021), School of Environment and Architecture, Mumbai (2021), Nottingham Arts Mela (2020) and many more. He was also a resident at Rote Fabrik, Zurich in 2019.

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POONAM JAIN

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Poonam Jain (b. 1989) works with drawing, installation, text, gestural works to foreground the intersection of seemingly divergent fields of pedagogy, economy and architecture. She investigates these spaces that one occupies and dwells in at different stages in their lives, looking primarily at language and numbers as some of the common denominators between these spaces. Alphabetical and numerical systems are amongst the first lessons one learns in school - two systems through which our worlds are qualified or ordered for the rest of time. The process of questioning and un/re-learning the ‘taught’ becomes the essence of her practice. She often shifts personal experiences to social concerns and vice-a-versa.

 

Jain is preoccupied with the ritualistic acts of measuring and counting as not just indicators of power, but also of home. She examines forms of counting in religion, politics, economics, and domestic settings, blurring the lines between these notional spaces to understand the micro-narrative formed by the language of numbers.

 

She was a resident at Art Dubai (2018). She was a member of the Clark House Initiative, Bombay from 2011 to 2016. Some of her group exhibitions were in Sapar Contemporary, New York (2017); New Gallery, Paris (2016); Kadist Art Foundation, Paris (2013); INSERT 2014, New Delhi; Gdanska Galeria Miejska 2, Poland (2014); MKG127, Canada (2014). She has had solo exhibitions in Art Dubai by 1x1 art gallery (2018); Clark House Initiative, Bombay (2014); 1X1 Art Gallery, Dubai (2014). She lives and works in Bombay.

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RUJUTA RAO

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Rujuta Rao (b.1989) is a conceptual interdisciplinary artist. Working with sculpture, text, photographs, sound, video and participatory installations, Rao uses fiction to think through cinematographic techniques, photographs (as physical objects and as digital images), programming languages and technological glitches by extending their qualities to the human body, especially to the female body. In doing so, she addresses the fragmenting effects of trauma on the bodies, minds and memories of women. Her work reflects her keen interest in alcoholic spirits and the ways in which they are made, used and imbibed.

 

Rao earned a BFA in sculpture from Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda in 2011, and an MFA in interdisciplinary art from Parsons School of Design, New York in 2014. In 2019, she founded RAO, a platform for the non-binary, single edition garments she makes as a part of her art practice. Her works have recently been exhibited at Printed Matter, NYC (2020); Goa Open Arts Festival (2020); Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore (2020); Serendipity Arts Festival, Goa (2019); g39, Cardiff (2018) and more. She lives and works in India and the United States.

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THUKRAL AND TAGRA

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Jiten Thukral (b.1976) and Sumir Tagra (b.1979) work collaboratively with a wide range of media, including painting, sculpture, installations, interactive games, video, performance, and design. Always exploring new formats of public engagement, they attempt to expand the scope of what art can do. Further emphasizing what their practice can achieve in a virtual context through their archives and publications, they break out of the mediated-disciplinary world to create multi-modal sensory and immersive storytelling environments.

 

Their earlier works dealt with tropes of migration, mythological narratives, symbols of Indian identity, and motifs of a globally manifested consumer culture that enliven a largely pedantic and static area of cultural material. From a pop visual character to a predominantly abstract visual approach and compositional philosophy, Thukral & Tagra constantly shift in terms of their grammar and vocabulary. They have offered sociopolitical commentary that is implicit in their aesthetic for the past eighteen years.

 

Recently, they are seeking to identify the practice as pedagogy through their collaborative, Pollinator.io – Interdisciplinary lab, which cultivates an inclusive learning ecosystem that indexes to achieve knowledge sharing through cross-pollination.

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Based in Gurgaon, these artists have exhibited their works in some of the most renowned galleries and institutions across the world including MMAG Foundation For Arts & Culture, Jordan (2020); Warehouse421, Abu Dhabi (2020); Nature Morte, New Delhi (2019); Yorkshire Sculpture Park, U.K (2019); Art Gallery Of Alberta, Canada (2018); The Manchester Museum, Manchester (2016); Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (2011); Maxxi Museum, Rome (2011); Yerba Buena Center For The Arts, San Francisco (2011); Arario Gallery, Seoul (2010); and Ullens Center For Contemporary Art, Beijing (2010), among many others.