SHIFTING THE CENTER TABLE
Shreyas Karle
January 15 – March 31, 2022
Press Release
1The idea, image and actual objecthood of this central table, with the arrangement of garment, coverings and a small object on it, embodies both the meanings (literal and perverse, see note 6) and the limits of the word, practice.
This table is at once a
desktop (the work of thought)
working surface (the work of making)
dining table (domestic work)
center-table (domestic and curatorial display)
operating table (medical/therapeutic work)
dressing table (folding, covering, clothing, unclothing)
bed (resting, sleeping, mortality)
art object (aesthetic and symbolic work)
altar (ritual)
container (folds up into a box for transporting the work)
cage (metaphorically, for moving domestic animals)
four-legged beast of burden
In its various yet simultaneous guises, the table straddles the entire spectrum of idea, form and function, from the practical and the domestic to the spectacular, the symbolic, the performative, the therapeutic, the museological and the numinous.
‘Shifting the center table’ exhibits the unmethodical, unmeditated gathering of objects & trivial ideas imagined and produced on multiple timelines- all realized under the pretext of a ‘show’. It does not take into account the studio paradigm but rather is a churning out of all unnecessary particulars which constitutes towards the functionality of certain domesticity. Does it matter anymore if the center table is shifted towards the wall? Does the center table lose its value if shifted towards the wall? does the wall gain value if it harbors the table? The exhibition summarizes these marginal & valuable inquiries through pedestalized and non-pedestalized displays that co-exists with the vertical curtains, horizontal table cloths and folded bedsheets.
1 footnote for Domestic Animals by Aveek Sen, 2020.
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About the artist
Shreyas Karle
b. 1981 Bombay, India / Lives and works in Goa, India
Shreyas Karle has completed his Diploma in Painting from L.S.Raheja School of Art, Mumbai, India in 2002 and his Post Diploma from M.S.University, Baroda, India in 2008. His works has been shown at: ART BASEL, Statements, Basel, Switzerland (2020), Aichi Triennial 2016, Japan / NGMA, ‘Come-in’ (Interior Design as Contemporary Art Medium), India, (2016) / New Museum Triennial, ‘Surround Audience’, New York, USA (2015) / Asian Art Museum, ‘First Look: Collecting Contemporary’, San Francisco, USA (2015) / Changwon Biennial, ‘Shade of the Moon’, South Korea (2014) / First edition of Kochi- Muziris Biennial, India (2012) / 54th Venice Biennial, Italy (2014). A visiting faculty at the Penny W. Stamps School of Art and Design, University of Michigan, USA (2017) and guest lecturer at Kyoto University of Art and Design Graduate School (2018). He has been a resident artist at Gasworks, London (2013), Rote Fabrik, Zurich, Switzerland (2012) and the Montalvo Arts Center, California, USA (2010).
Karle has been awarded the FICA artist award for emerging artist (2009) and the Nasreen Mohamedi scholarship from the Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University, India (2005). Former Director of Sandarbh – a site-specific artist initiative in India. Currently, he is the co-director of CONA Foundation and KATCONA Design Cell - a project space in Goa with artist Hemali Bhuta.