Reena Saini Kallat (born 1973) is an Indian visual artist. She currently lives and works in Mumbai.

Early life

Reena Saini Kallat was born in 1973 in Delhi, India. She graduated from Sir Jamsetjee Jeejebhoy School of Art in 1996 with a B.F.A. in painting. Her practice spanning drawing, photography, sculpture and video engages diverse materials, imbued with conceptual underpinnings. Her works reference history, collective memory and identity. Using the motif of the rubberstamp both as object and imprint, signifying the bureaucratic apparatus, Reena has worked with officially recorded or registered names of people, objects, and monuments that are lost or have disappeared without a trace, only to get listed as anonymous and forgotten statistics. Lines of Control is a recurring element in her works led by the impact that partition had on her family who were displaced from Lahore. In her works made with electrical cables, wires usually serving as conduits of contact that transmit ideas and information, become painstakingly woven entanglements that morph into barbed wires like barriers, while another series where she uses salt as a medium explores the tenuous yet intrinsic relationship between the body and the oceans, highlighting the fragility and unpredictability of existence. To expose the arbitrariness of territorial-skirmishes, Reena frequently draws attention to ecosystems and indigenous vegetation.

Career

She has widely exhibited across the world in venues such as Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York; Migros Museum of Contemporary Art, Zurich; Tate Modern, London; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Kennedy Centre, Washington; Vancouver Art Gallery; Saatchi Gallery, London; SESC Pompeia and SESC Belenzino in São Paulo; Goteborgs Konsthall, Sweden; Helsinki City Art Museum, Finland; National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts; Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel; National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul; Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo; Casa Asia, Madrid and Barcelona; ZKM Karlsruhe in Germany; Campbelltown Arts Centre, Sydney; Hangar Bicocca, Milan; Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai; IVAM Museum, Spain; Busan MOMA; Kulturhuset, Stockholm; Kunsthaus Langenthal, Switzerland; Chicago Cultural Centre amongst many others. She lives and works in Mumbai.

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Artist residencies

In 2002 Kallat was an artist-in-residence in the Laurentian mountains of Quebec at the Boreal Art and Nature Centre in Canada. In 2011 she was awarded an IASPIS residency to work and study in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Awards

Kallat has been the recipient of a number of awards, including:

Collections

Reena's work is held in the following public and private collections: ● Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney ● Arario Corporation Collection, South Korea ● Burger Collection, Hongkong ● Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai ● Chau Chak Wing Museum, the University of Sydney ● Devi Art Foundation, New Delhi ● Ermenegildo Zegna Group, Italy ● Fondazione Golinelli, Italy ● Initial Access (Frank Cohen Collection), UK ● JSW Foundation, Mumbai ● Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi ● Manchester Museum, UK ● Musee de Beaux Arts, Ottawa ● National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung ● National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi ● Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre (NMACC), Mumbai ● Norrtalje Konsthall, Sweden ● Pizzuti Collection, Ohio ● Saatchi Gallery, London ● Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE ● Sir H.N. Reliance Foundation Hospital and Research Centre, Mumbai ● Tiroche DeLeon Collection, Israel ● The Fox Group, USA ● The Gene and Brian Sherman Collection, Australia ● Vancouver Art Gallery, Canada