Kanishka Raja’s unique blend of pattern and decoration, Op Art and Indian miniature, doubles, mirrors, multiplies and samples a curriculum of surfaces to create complex psychological interiors. Anonymous airport lounges present a world void of inhabitants, yet they are suffused with mysterious signs of human occupation such as tents and army cots, the occasional Playstation or flat screen TV.
It has always been a fundamental aspect of the artist’s work to explore the collision between traditions of Western perspectival space and the particular conventions of pictorial design in Indian miniature painting. Raja takes his cues from the pre-Renaissance idea of rendering space by collapsing and compressing perspective, an idea which is also explored in videogames. He builds on this information, not just in how spaces are stacked, but also in how things operate inside and outside a frame and how elements from one painting spill over into another as part of the larger continuum.
Raja’s current cycle of paintings prominently feature a geometrical pattern that is derived from a photograph of a window grill from the Babri Masjid, a 16th century mosque in Ayodhya, India that was destroyed by Hindu fundamentalists in December 1992. The nationwide riots and bloody reprisals that followed the destruction, culminated in March 1993 when in one morning, 13 bombs ripped through the heart of Bombay.
By using the Babri Masjid pattern throughout the work, it becomes the essence of repetition and allows Raja to emphasize historical repetition as well as our persistent political and cultural amnesia. He takes this even further by creating wallpaper from a drawing whose pattern is generated from images of the destruction after the Bombay attacks.
As in Raja’s earlier work, the iconography of the airport continues to operate as the quintessential liminal space: the place of arrival and departure. By unfolding the images in a panoramic format he develops a narrative that unfolds in time. This allows for a circularity that becomes the structural metaphor for the ideas of repetition, the idea of reflection, showing that what is in front of us is exactly what is behind us.
The exhibition in itself is also doubled. Divided in two parts, in two different locations, the downtown-uptown show is an important aspect that further underscores the thematic thread and allows for the exhibition to remain fragmented, split: complete only in the imagination.
Zhang Peili
Jan 11 - Feb 16, 2008
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Mahomi Kunikata
12/6/07 - 12/22/07
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Ashley Hope:
Ripeness is All
Dec 6 - Dec 22, 2007
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Kamau Patton &
Kranishka Raia
Oct 30 - Nov 17, 2007
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Kianja Strobert &
Andreas Diefenbach
Sep 4 – Oct 6, 2007
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Feng Zhengjie &
Zhao Gang
May 10 - Jun 16, 2007
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Delphine Courtillot
May 30 - May 5, 2007
------------------------------ Cruzvillegas, Lucas & Lehmann
Feb 16 - Mar 24, 2007
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Thomas Kiesewetter & Sara Van der Heide
Jan 6 - Feb 10, 2007
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Rebecca Purdum
& Miguel Angel Rios
Nov 28 - Dec 22, 2006
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David Hammons
& LA Object
Oct 20 - Nov 25, 2006
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Joe Coleman
Sep 7 - Nov 4, 2006
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Jiang Hu
May 23 - June 30, 2006
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Bonanza
March 10 - April 22 , 2006
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School Days
Jan 14 - Feb 25, 2006
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Tiffany/Pollock Berend Strik
Nov 11 - Dec 23, 2005
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Carrie Mae Weems, Carolee Schneeman and Jenny Perlin
Sep 21 - Oct 29, 2005
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Celebrate 22 years
March 12 - May 12, 2005
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Fresh: group show
Jan 29- March 6, 2004
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Thomas Kiesewetter
Nov 13- Jan 17, 2003
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Eduardo Abaroa
Oct 11- Nov 8, 2003
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Derrick Adams
Sepr 17 - Oct 4, 2003
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Funf Deutch Frauen
May 30 - July 2003
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Abraham Cruzvillegas
April 18- May 24, 2003
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Markus Selg
Mar 7- April 12, 2003
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Jeff Sonhouse:
Tailored Larceny
Nov 22- Dec 21, 2002
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Chris Finley
Oct 19 - Nov 16, 2002
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Leo Copers
Feb 13 - Mar 2 , 2002
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Fabrice Hybert
May 2 - June 2 , 2002
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Patty Chang
Novr 2 - Decr 8, 2001