Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) is pleased to announce that Brooklyn-based artist Chitra Ganesh will spend two days at RISD this spring as the first Vikram and Geetanjali Kirloskar Visiting Scholar in painting. Ganesh will visit the Providence campus in April to participate in a review for painting graduate students and to give a public talk on Wednesday, April 9, 2014, at 4pm in RISD’s Metcalf Auditorium in the Chace Center (20 N. Main Street, Providence). She will return to teach a painting seminar during the fall 2014 semester and will mount a show in RISD’s Memorial Hall Gallery.
Ganesh’s drawing, installation, text-based work, and collaborations seek to excavate and circulate buried narratives typically excluded from official canons of history, literature, and art.
The Kirloskar Visiting Scholar in painting is the result of a one million USD gift to RISD—the single largest gift ever from an international donor—to establish an endowed fund to support visiting artists and scholars in the Painting department. The endowment highlights RISD’s growing emphasis on global engagement and positions the painting department to further that commitment by attracting visiting artists and scholars from India or the US who have a strong connection to Indian culture.
In spring 2015, the New Delhi, India-based collective Raqs Media Collective will be in residence for one month as the second Kirloskar Visiting Scholars.
“We’re very pleased that the Kirloskars created this opportunity to recognize teaching excellence at RISD,” notes RISD Interim President Rosanne Somerson (76 ID). “Professor Dennis Congdon (75 PT) had a profound impact on the artistic development of their daughter. This endowment is an expression of their gratitude, and supports a growing emphasis on global learning and cross-cultural opportunities at RISD. We look forward to welcoming our first scholar this spring and thank the Kirloskar Advisory Group for their thoughtful work in selecting our first two visitors.”
The RISD Kirloskar Advisory Group serves to talk about what it means for RISD to provide such an esteemed program, as well as to advise on the selection of the program’s visiting artists and scholars. The group is comprised of six individuals, including Shahzia Sikander (MFA 95 PT/PR), Hammad Naser from the Asia Art Archive in Hong Kong, Assistant Professor of Literary Arts and Studies Avishek Ganguly, and Mumbai-based alum Anuradha Parikh (83 AR), among others.
As the Kirloskars were celebrating their daughter’s graduation from RISD in 2012, they realized they were very moved by her four-year experience at one of the world’s top art schools. “We were happy with Manasi’s progress at RISD for many reasons,” notes Vikram Kirloskar, “but to our mind the most important thing she learned was to think openly and creatively. It was an attribute she already had, but RISD helped add a certain amount of process discipline and work management, which were valuable additions. The constant critiques and an intense demand for high quality work have taught her to look closely at details.”
Given the distance between their home in Bangalore and RISD’s campus in Providence, the Kirloskars were also heartened that their daughter spoke so favorably about the deep care, support and extraordinary encouragement she received from her teachers every step of the way. Their gift to the painting department will ensure that future generations of students benefit from experiences at RISD as rewarding as Manasi’s, while also offering students from the US and abroad meaningful exposure to Indian art and culture.
