Spectres of the Real

Geeta Kapur presents varied readings of Ranbir Kaleka's Man Threading a Needle, a work which combines the painted image with video and sound.

- Geeta Kapur

Ranbir Kaleka. Man Threading Needle. Still from video. Projection size: 26" x 35.5". 1999. Images courtesy of the artist and Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi.

THIS ESSAY IS TAKEN FROM THE ART/TECHNOLOGY ISSUE OF ART INDIA VOLUME IV, ISSUE III, 1999.

The Image

Ranbir Kaleka's most recent artwork, Man Threading Needle (1999),¹ is presented to the viewer as a painting set on a good easel and placed in a darkened alcove of what is presumably the white box of the museum or gallery. The painting is lit rather as you might find an old master painting set apart for special attention when it has just been acquired and holds pride of place in the collection, or when it is isolated to make a point at the time of a curated exhibition. Knowing that 'a work of art' gains its meaning from the process of viewing it in the sacred space of the art gallery, you enter the space demarcated by Kaleka imbued with the requisite awe. Thereon the artist's ingenuity has to be matched by the viewing protocol: together this yields unexpected meanings. The light comes from a (hidden) projector. The image occasionally twitches, it responds to a periodic sound that punctuates and penetrates the image - as it does the spectator. Slowly, you realize that Kaleka has manipulated the image: he has doubled (tripled?) its affect by a video projection of a real man a painted image of the same man. He has done what must be written into the script for a painter who turns to another form of visuality: he matches image to image as between painting and video, he makes it faintly animate, he presents it theatrically, as an installation.