One of India’s leading contemporary artists, Kallat’s work explores the intersections of science, historical memory and existential inquiry, often reflecting on humanity’s planetary presence and place in the cosmos. It often juxtaposes the everyday with the cosmic, the present with the historical, and the terrestrial with the celestial.
Solo exhibitions of his work have been presented at the Art Institute of Chicago; the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; the Frist Art Museum, Nashville; the Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne; the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai; the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco; and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, among others. The National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi presented a mid-career survey of his work in 2017.
His work has also been presented at institutions including Tate Modern, London; Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin; Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane; Kunstmuseum Bern; Serpentine Galleries, London; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; and Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan. He has participated in major international exhibitions including the Venice Biennale, Gwangju Biennale and Havana Biennial, as well as the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, the Guangzhou Triennial, the Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale, the Kyiv Biennale and the Curitiba Biennial.
Kallat’s curatorial projects include Whorled Explorations, the second edition of the Kochi–Muziris Biennale (2014–15); I Draw, Therefore I Think for SouthSouth in 2021; Tangled Hierarchy at the John Hansard Gallery in Southampton; and Tangled Hierarchy 2, presented by the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art as part of the Invitations Programme of the 5th Kochi–Muziris Biennale in 2022.
The sixth edition of the Kochi–Muziris Biennale, titled For the Time Being, is currently underway. Curated by Nikhil Chopra with HH Art Spaces, the edition will conclude on 31 March 2026. The Biennale is organised by the Kochi Biennale Foundation, a non-profit organisation established in 2010.
