TILBURG.- Starting this autumn, De Pont’s new wing will provide space for works by the young Indian artist Amol K Patil (1987). Never-before displayed kinetic sculptures, drawings, poetry, audio recordings and light effects will merge to create a theatrical environment. Patil’s work centres on the social situation of labourers and the rigid caste system in his homeland. A style of housing known as chawl, characteristic of the tenement buildings that have housed Mumbai factory workers for generations, is a recurring theme in his work. His own family history plays a role as well. Patil carries on the critical tradition established by his father, an avant-garde playwright, and his grandfather, a poet. Understated and enigmatic, Patil’s installations offer a tangible experience of how it feels to be the object of oppression.

In De Pont, Patil creates a space where light and shadow take on symbolic meaning, and where subtle movements and sounds draw the viewer in. Wandering through the dimly lit galleries, the visitor is forced to concentrate on their surroundings and, in the process, experience for themselves the darkness in which India’s lowest social classes must live. In the sculpture entitled Lines Between the City (2023), Patil sets these individuals literally and figuratively in the limelight. The shadow looming behind the work lends a monumental quality to people otherwise considered insignificant.

Rooms full of stories

Chawls originally served as prisons before being converted into housing for factory workers. According to Patil, the rooms in which generations of workers have lived (and where people continue to live) are brimming with history and the inhabitants’ stories have become embedded in the very walls. Because Indian society condemns people from the lowest caste to an invisible existence, their lives often go unnoticed. Patil is particularly inspired by these living spaces — the textures of the walls, the old household objects, the discarded work clothes — and draws attention to the traces left behind by the workers.

Autumn in De Pont

This autumn, by displaying Patil’s work in combination with the exhibition War and Peace: A Poetics of Gesture by renowned Colombian artist Beatriz González (1932), De Pont is devoting attention to two non-Western artists who are revealing the buried histories of their respective countries and, through their art, lending a voice to those at the margins of society.

Amol K Patil
1987, Mumbai (IN)
Lives and works in Mumbai (IN)

In 2022, Patil participated in documenta 15 and in 2023, he won the first-ever Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation/Kochi-Muziris Biennale (DBF-KMB) Award. In connection with this award, the Hayward Gallery in London displayed his work in its exhibition The Politics of Skin and Movement. Patil was an artist-in-residence at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam from 2022-2024 and has been invited to participate in the 15th Gwangju Biennale at the end of 2024. The artist trained at the Rachana Sansad Academy of Fine Arts and Crafts in Mumbai.

Selected solo exhibitions

The Politics of Skin and Movement, Hayward Gallery, Londen (UK) (2023), Sweep-Walking, Metta Contemporary, Mumbai (IN) (2018), Under Construction, ACC, Gwangju (KR) (2017), Black Boys Look Blue, Twelve Gates Arts, Philadelphia (USA) (2017)

Selected group exhibitions

documenta 15, Kassel (DE) (2022), Yokohama Triennale, Yokohama (JP) (2020), As It Rises Into The Air: Listening In Practice, Goethe-Institute/Max Mueller Bhavan, Delhi (IN) (2019), Kamarado, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (SMBA), Amsterdam (NL) (2015)