Tamil Man

“When I walk slowly across the floor of the studio, I step with my ancestors. I step with outcastes, migrants and refugees. I step with artists, dancers and pilgrims. My foot trembles, unaccustomed to this labor. It is painted, made up in the guise of a sculpture. I step into Tamil Man, into the vision of Malvina Hoffman, who put her self-proclaimed capacity to see and identify true racial types to work in her monumental commission of the Hall of the Races of Mankind at the Field Museum of Chicago in the 1930s. I step out of the museum, out of the studio and into a pose as a living sculpture. On the banks of the river, I perform austerities. Trembling, I die and give birth to myself, every 29.97th of a second.” 

Karthik Pandian

Installation view

Artworks displayed

Karthik Pandian

Opulent Austerity (for my caste and my makeup artist)
2018
inkjet print on silk
140 × 140 cm

Karthik Pandian

Opulent Austerity (for Mamayya and Malvina)
2018
inkjet print on silk
140 × 140 cm

Karthik Pandian

Opulent Austerity (for meditation amidst serpents)
2018
inkjet print on silk

Karthik Pandian

Opulent Austerity (for myself)
2018
inkjet print on silk
140 × 140 cm

Karthik Pandian

Corpse Pose (variation)
2018
gouache, ballpoint pen and laser jet on paper, wood frame
32 × 38 × 3 cm

Karthik Pandian

Boat Pose
2018
gouache, ballpoint pen and laser jet on paper, wood frame
32 × 38 × 3 cm

Karthik Pandian

Flesh (Threshold Pink)
2018
latex print on canvas from 4 x 5 negative with pigment on hand dyed muslin
fabric: 254 x 270 cm; canvas: 280 x 150 cm

Karthik Pandian

Platform (for economic and literal levitation)
2018
stainless steel and fabric
170 × 76 × 59 cm

Karthik Pandian

Tamil Man
2018
Two-channel HD 9:16 video on 65” Flatscreen
(8 min, 88 sec)
9:16 65” flatscreen; runtime 8 minutes 88 seconds