Important Notice

Ranbir Kaleka is one of India’s pioneering new media artists whose works hint at the beginnings of installation art in India. “Before merging painting and video to create a spectral cinematic interface, for two decades Kaleka honed a painterly practice of considerable theatricality.” (Gitanjali Dang, “Ranbir Kaleka”, Frieze, 1 April 2011, online)

As seen in the present lot, Kaleka’s impulse is to orchestrate various figures and... Ranbir Kaleka is one of India’s pioneering new media artists whose works hint at the beginnings of installation art in India. “Before merging painting and video to create a spectral cinematic interface, for two decades Kaleka honed a painterly practice of considerable theatricality.” (Gitanjali Dang, “Ranbir Kaleka”, Frieze, 1 April 2011, online)

As seen in the present lot, Kaleka’s impulse is to orchestrate various figures and objects on the same canvas to create a surrealist vision. The opulence of the image gives way to meaning making. As Kaleka asserts, “Each viewer is free to mirror his own fancies in any painting.” (Ranbir Kaleka in an interview with Aman Nath, “I am not a surrealist painter: Ranbir Singh Kaleka,” India Today, 10 January 2014, online) Renewal Among the Tropics may evoke a fantastical world for some or concerns about flora and fauna in the face of human encroachment into nature for others. Kaleka immerses the audience in meticulously composed visuals where each element is executed with painstaking detail and offers a multitude of interpretations.

Read More
Artist Profile
Other works of this artist in: this auction  |  entire site