Jitish Kallat

Aario Gallery, Beijing

in good condition, blue and turquoise tones slightly lighter in reality, as viewed
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The current canvas is part of series collectively titled Humiliation Tax with each painting dominated by the centralized image of a young underprivileged child, who are symbols for the most vulnerable and impoverished members of Indian society. The series continues a more general theme concerning the polarities of experience within urban India that Kallat has explored through several series over a period of a few years.

Rendered with a stylised drawing that absorbs elements of realism and caricature and elements of pop art 'they embody the spirit of survival, holding up the twin narratives of strife and grit. The children take their centralised position across luminous, psychedelic backdrops, where repeated inscriptions of the name of the deity, skewed and twirled, achieve a radiating effect. The word 'Ram' repeated endlessly morphs itself into 'Mara'; death and deity interchange on the bright backdrops of these canvases.

The devotion and defence mechanisms of the lower cast Ramnami sect of Chattisgarh, whose bodies are entirely tattooed with the name of Ram were in many ways the starting point for this series; these inscriptions on their skin form a protective shield from upper caste brutality. Formally speaking, the paintings obtain their tone from the fleeting pop poop on television, the retinal code of the billboard and the fierce economy of agitprop posters.' (Excerpts from the exhibition note for the exhibition published on www.chemould.com )