Shrine Empire Gallery » Gautam Kansara

Bio CV Exhibitions

Mum, Grandpa and Lear
Bedtime Stories (The Parsi People)

Education

2002-2004 Master of Arts, Art in New Media, New York University
1997-2001 Bachelor of Arts, Studio Art, University of California, Santa Cruz

Solo Exhibitions

2016
Of Record, Grizzly Grizzly, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (two-person exhibition with Takashi Horzaki)
2014
Save As…, Shrine Empire Gallery, New Delhi, India
2012
This Is Familiar But I Can’t Remember Now…, Dumbo Arts Festival, Brooklyn, NY
2010
Don’t Hurry, Don’t Worry, Shrine Empire Gallery, New Delhi, India
2008
us between us, Real Art Ways, Hartford, Connecticut
2004
After Night, Tribeca Film Festival 2004, Tribeca Cinemas Gallery, New York City

Selected Collections

The Burger Collection, Hong Kong, China and Schlieren, Switzerland
Collection of the Center for Book Arts, New York City
Shreya and Swapan Seth Collection, New Delhi, India

Residencies/Awards

2020 Swiss Art Awards 2020, Basel, Switzerland (June)
2016-2017 Workspace, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York City
2008-2009 Artist in Residence, Center for Book Arts, New York City
2007 GO! Fellowship, Real Art Ways, Hartford, Connecticut
2006-2007 Studio Artist Fellowship, Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, New York
2006 AIM, Artist in the Marketplace, Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York City Swing Space, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York City

Selected Group Exhibitions and Screenings * indicates screening ** indicates collaboration

2020
The Kansara Show (anyway we stop, we’re moving away), Swiss Art Awards, Basel, Switzerland
2019
Forget the body, think about before (look slowly, look closely), Kulturhaus Helferei, Zürich, Switzerland
2018
Art Alumni Show, Commons Gallery, New York University, New York City Curated by Chrissie Iles, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Curator, Whitney Museum of American Art

Selected Group Exhibitions and Screenings * indicates screening ** indicates collaboration

2018
*YES: Lili Chin / Gautam Kansara, Microscope Gallery, Brooklyn, NY Lapses II, Sakshi Gallery, Bombay, India
2017
Lucid Dreams and Distant Visions, Asia Society Museum, New York City Lapses, Harrington Street Arts Centre, Kolkata, India
2016 Wear(e), Urban Garden Room, Chashama, New York City *Desktop Cinema: Reconfiguring the Screen, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada Speak Out, Bronx Art Space, Bronx, NY
2015
The Time is NOW, Scope Lounge, Scope New York, New York City Respond, Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY
2014
Poison Dartz, Secret Project Robot, Brooklyn, NY Faculty Studio, Manhattan Project(s), Manhattan College, NYC 2013
*A Nite with the Poison Dartz, Secret Project Robot, Brooklyn, NY Faculty Exhibition, National Academy Museum, New York City
2012
Near by Night 5, Zinema, Lausanne, Switzerland
Interpreting Rituals: The Butterfly Effect, NARS Foundation, Brooklyn, NY
**Collapsing Giant, Malcolm Low/Formal Structure, Joyce Soho, New York City
2011
Picturing Parallax, SFSU Fine Arts Gallery, San Francisco, California
Multiple, Unique, Limited: Selections from the Permanent Collection, The Center for Book Arts, New York City
2010
*Art Kino Presents: Frictive Familiarities, Biografteatern Rio, Stockholm, Sweeden
A Place of Their Own, BMB Gallery, Mumbai, India
**Other Spaces, CENTER 548, New York City (Collaboration with David Shull, Sarah Kuhn, Lane Lacolla)
2009
*Programme 3, British Film Institute, BFI Southbank Studio Theater, London, UK Curated by Peter Campus, and in conjunction with Opticks at BFI Southbank Gallery
*Left Coast/Gautam Kansara/Andrew Hurst, No Soul For Sale, X-Initiative, NYC
*Social Soup, EFA Project Space, Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York City
2008
Wir sind immer für euch da (We will always be there for you), Kunsthaus Dresden, Dresden, Germany
*Thicker Than Water, Video_Dumbo, Galapagos Art Space, Brooklyn, New York
*Rencontres Internationales Madrid 2008, Museo Nacional Centro De Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain

Selected Group Exhibitions and Screenings * indicates screening ** indicates collaboration

2007- 2007
Drift 2007, Rush Arts Gallery, New York City
Transitio MX 2, Centro Nacional de las Artes, Mexico City, Mexico
TV Dinners, LMAK Projects, New York City
2006
Beyond Images 2, , 4th Seoul Media Art Biennial, Dukwon Gallery, Seoul, Korea
Multiplex: Legal Aliens, Smack Mellon Gallery, Brooklyn, New York
*Sex and Sadness, Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center, Beyoglu, Istanbul, Turkey
2005
SIART Bolivia 2005, Bienal Internacional, Museo Nacional de Arte, La Paz, Bolivia
*22nd Kassel Documentary Film and Video Art Festival, Kassel, Germany
*Now and Future, Cantor Film Center, New York City

Teaching
2015- 2018 Coordinator of Digital Media, Visual and Performing Arts Department, Manhattan College
2005 – 2014 Adjunct Professor, Digital Media, Visual and Performing Arts Department, Manhattan College
2005 – 2018 Adjunct Professor, Photography/Video, Department of Art and Art Professions, New York University

Selected Bibliography
The Parallax View by Santhi Kavuri-Bauer, South Asian Diaspora Journal, December 2017
The Place of the Self: Auto-Ethnographic filmic writings and space by Miriam De Rosa, Publication of Universita Catholia del Sacro Cuore, Mlan, Italy, May 2013
Picturing Parallax by Falu Bakrania, Santhi Kavuri-Bauer, Kasturi Ray, and Paul Sherwin, Catalog, SFSU Fine Arts Gallery, October 2011
Frictive Familiarities by Diana Kaur, Catalog, Art Kino and Bastard Gallery, Stockholm, November 2010
Homeward Bound by Zeenat Nagree, TimeOut Mumbai, October
2010 A Curious Inheritance by Gopika Nath, Take On Art Magazine, July 2010
A Place of Their Own by Sharmistha Ray, ArtPulse Magazine, November 2009
Way in the World by Sharmistha Ray, Art India Magazine, July 2009
Snapshots, the Airport, and Lunch by Stephen Maine, Real Art Ways, August 2008
TV Dinners by Louky Keijsers, NY ARTS Magazine, July 2007
Aliens in Our Midst by Wayne Hodge, The Reeler, December, 2006
Genocchio, Ben, Art in Review: For Hopeful Artists, the Search to be Just Themselves New York Times, April, 2006

Gautam Kansara is an artist and educator formerly based in Brooklyn, New York, and recently relocated to Zürich, Switzerland. Crossing mediums between video, photography, and installation, Kansara’s work is part of prestigious private collections including The Burger Collection, Hong Kong, and The Shreya and Swapan Seth Collection, New Delhi. Since 2002 his works have been featured internationally at the Asia Society Museum (New York), Bronx Museum of the Arts (New York), Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), British Film Institute (London), Shrine Empire Gallery (New Delhi), LMAK Gallery (New York), and Secret Project Robot (Brooklyn). Gautam has been an artist-in-residence at Smack Mellon, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Workspace (2017) and Swing Space (2006), and the Center for Book Arts, all in New York City. Gautam has a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in Studio Arts from the University of California, Santa Cruz, as well as a Master of Arts degree from New York University’s Department of Arts and Arts Professions. Recently Gautam was included in the inaugural alumni exhibition for New York University’s Department of Art and Art Professions, which was curated by Chrissie Iles, the Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Gautam has been Nominated for Swiss Art Awards, organized annually by the Swiss Federal Office for Culture, Switzerland, he has been selected for a solo presentation during Art Basel 2020.

Through video, photography, and installation Kansara produces works that draw upon personal history and current events in order to examine the layering of personal and collective memory, family dynamics, and cultural displacement. Kansara uses an arsenal of analog manoeuvres and gestures to alter and obscure documentary based recordings. Documentation and archiving are at the core of Kansara’s work. Recording himself and his family as source material has often been where he’s started. And this practice, this desire to record and then re-watch, re-edit, and re-position is rooted in the question of how to negotiate the experience and the memory with the archive and the documentation.