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.

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.
Speculations On A New World Order, Shrine Empire, New Delhi.

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.
*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, New York.

2014
Poison Dartz, Secret Project Robot, Brooklyn, NY Faculty Studio, Manhattan Project(s), Manhattan College, New York City.

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, New York.
**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, Sweden.
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, New York City.
*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.

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.

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

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. Kansara creates artworks that draw on personal history and contemporary events to address the layering of personal and collective memory, family dynamics, and cultural relocation through video, photography, and installation. Kansara alters and obscures documentary-based recordings with an arsenal of analogue manoeuvres and gestures. Kansara’s work is centred on documentation, archiving and preservation. He frequently began by recording himself and his family as source material. And this practice, this drive to record and then re-watch, re-edit, and re-position stems from the challenge of how to negotiate experience and memory with archive and documentation.

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.