SAN JOSE, CA.- The San Jose Museum of Art kicked off its multi-stage exhibition Around the Table: food, creativity, community with the work of internationally acclaimed artist Jitish Kallat. In Jitish Kallat: Epilogue, on view September 6, 2013 – April 20, 2014, the Mumbai-based artist honors his late father through a deeply personal installation. Epilogue (2010–11) comprises 753 photographs that depict progressively eaten roti, the round, traditional South Asian flatbread. Each roti represents one of the 22,500 moons that were in the sky during Kallat’s father’s 62-year lifespan.

“Jitish Kallat focuses on universal themes of birth, death, survival—what he calls the ‘endless narratives of human struggle,’” said Susan Leask, interim senior curator at SJMA. “In Epilogue, he pays respect to his father, with whom he undoubtedly shared many roti around the family table. Kallat reminds viewers of life’s natural ebb and flow and of the things that nourish us—bread, the staff of life;family; and celestial rhythms.”

Kallat will speak about his work at the India Community Center in Milpitas on Thursday, October 3, at 8 PM.

Jitish Kallat(b. 1974) is one of the most exciting and dynamic Asian artists to have received international recognition in recent years. His work has been included in such important museum exhibitions as Thermocline of Art—New Asian Waves at the ZKM Museum in Karlsruhe (2007) and Century City at Tate Modern in London (2001). Recent solo exhibitions have taken place in galleries in Beijing, London, and Mumbai. His work is included in the collections of the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi; The Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Singapore Art Museum; FAAM (Fukuoka Asian Art Museum), Japan; the Sigg Collection, Switzerland; and other institutions around the world.Kallat was one of the artists highlighted in SJMA’s exhibition Roots in the Air, Branches Below: Modern and Contemporary Art from India in 2010.