Ranbir Kaleka: ‘I continue to work on a piece, even if it takes months to years, until it feels right in my entire body’

In an exclusive interview with indianexpress.com, the New Delhi-based art whiz talks more about this experience with NFT, his journey, his journey, the evolution of the world of art, and how his works have transformed over the years. Read the edited excerpts below:

How would you describe your journey of nearly four decades?

I recall the first cinema images as well as theatrical performances. I was 3 or 4 years old and from our village house balcony, I saw an animation film projected on the side of a van parked in a clearing. It showed enormous mosquitos, in-flight, and stinging. I was amazed by the transformation of the van into mosquitos and then back into a van. Also, my uncle used to create shadow plays for my brother and me on the walls of our haveli. He used a lantern to cast huge shadows of his body which he often padded up for the show. This transformative power of cinema and shadow play has left a lasting impression on me and helped me evolve as an artist over the years.

The overlaying of the still-painted image with the moving image constructs a cohabitation of different ‘materialities’, methods, rhythms, and styles. This atypical visuality allows me to reach yet unstirred spaces within my psyche. The meaning of the work is intrinsic to the artwork and fabrication.

In a similar vein, in what ways have your works changed over the years, in the wake of newer trends and technological advancements in the field of art?

I can say that technology rather helped me in exploring and expanding painting. Cameras and digital devices were once just new tools in the painter’s hand. Hundreds of years ago, painters used camera obscura to project images made of light onto various surfaces; only the moving images were not captured to be replayed or looped. Today, inspired by cinema, I am able to capture the theatre of the moving image onto painted canvas. The digitally captured images allow for light manipulation, and the small size of today’s projectors allows easy installation in alternative locations.

The Enchanted Strife by Ranbir Kaleka. (Photo: PR handout)

You have just launched your first NFT drop; what led you to experiment with this growing medium?

I was persuaded by my young son, Vikram, who had a conversation with Myna Mukherjee (one of the curators) to explore the world of NFTs.

Tell us about your digital work, and in what ways is it different from/similar to your oeuvre?

The video shows wrestlers of different genders in a perpetual tussle in an undefined landscape. Wrestling is a metaphor for (grappling with) life. Ancient Greek philosophers believed that there was a parallel between philosophy and wrestling; it was like a physical dialectic, a physical manifestation of a philosophical argument.

Art is known to adapt to the changes around, with artists often showcasing the present times in their works — how do you envision the scope of NFTs in the world of art?

Instant and wider distribution of NFTs parallels the age of social media.

 

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You have dabbled with digital work much before many artists; what have been your learnings?

When I speak of an idea for an artwork presenting itself as a visual event, nearly always, it arrives with its medium. The challenges of all the mediums are similar as they require honesty in their execution. Most of my practice involves me singly in the making of a work. The exception is when you are making a video and require many cameras and a large number of people for the shoot — there, the challenge is to allow each of my assistants to be true to themselves and see how they can weave their natural instincts into their vision. I hope the viewers connect with the artworks by locating its strands in their own life experiences.

What do you fathom will be the good and the bad, when considering the scope of NFTs/Web 3 Space vis-à-vis the niche world of art?

It gives us a methodology for a larger circulation of an artwork without the fear of pirated digital versions, and NFTs should go some way in addressing this aspect. What we don’t want to happen is that the sensibility of reading the brushstrokes, responding to the skin of a painted surface, the special ‘connect’ with the physical presence of a painting’s body is diminished by the sole exposure to digital artworks displayed on screens, or carried on your mobile phones although they offer the intimacy of carrying the artwork with you where ever you are, which too is a valued aesthetic experience.

 You are believed to have started drawing when you were just three years old. How and how did your love affair with art begin?

Where everyone in the family was an inventive storyteller, creating their own forms and methods to tell a story, there were also two village raconteurs who were occasionally called to the house to retell an incident. What the raconteurs created can be described as a circle of magic, they pulled you into it, kept you enthralled, making you oblivious of the external world.

The first seed for a work usually is found at unexpected moments, in various sources: a real happening, literature, art history, a memory recall etc. I would say the seed leads to the efflorescence of a visual ‘event’. As the contours take a more definite shape, the visual ‘event’ begins to ‘whisper’ its meaning. Now, for me to continue to work on it, it’s necessary that it continues to tantalise me with its multifaceted fecundity. The complete, fuller meaning of the work which engages me stays just beyond my grasp. If I completely understand what the work ‘is’, then it is a work which is one dimensional and is not plumbing the hidden depths of an experience. I then do not take the work any further. Otherwise, I pursue its elusiveness and begin to move on from sketches to gathering reference materials if necessary. I continue to work on a piece, even if it takes months to years, until it ‘feels’ right in my entire body.

 

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Did the pandemic affect your work/the artist in you in any way?

There are two aspects to an art practice: first is that you engage with the world on the street and the second is that art is also a secluded meditative practice. During the pandemic, I went through a meditative phase where the outer world opened only through social and news media. My most recent immersive installation titled Breath came very much from the period of pandemic at its worse.

What is next in store for Ranbir Kaleka?

I will go on looking for newer meaning-making devices.

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