I am a multidisciplinary artist interested in the philosophical question of bordercrossing. Active for almost a decade, I have been trying to explore complex socio-political issues through my artistic practice.

I grew up in a chawl; the 4-5 story houses that were built in Mumbai to host workers in the 1900s. Living conditions in chawls are extremely tough and stories about them reveal that middle class income in India does not protect people from precarious conditions. People who live in chawls are, for instance, employed as office clerks. Each day, the clerk’s offices are cleaned by sweepers. For part of my research, I decided to become a sweeper. At first sight,
Sweep Walking—which, as a work of art, is grounded in the tradition of Indian performance art—looks playful and much more cheerful than one would expect. In my practices I intend to use my artistic material as my statement. For example dust comes in as material; in the white cube exhibition space, dusty objects perform the act of border crossing, an act that is denied to sweepers. In my paintings, I often explore skin and flesh as an aesthetic of reality. My upbringing in a chawl gave me a practical and close, critical understanding of the systems of categorization and classification, and an understanding also of my father and grandfather, who were both Dalit poets and performers. My Powadai singer grandfather opposed the caste system and was critical of the British rule over India.

BIO
Amol K Patil (b. 1987) is a conceptual and performance artist based in Mumbai. After his education in the visual arts from Rachana Sansad Academy of Fine Arts and Crafts, Mumbai, his work has explored the intersection of performance art, theatre, music, kinetic art, and video installation. Patil’s work excavates and investigates family traditions: his grandfather was an interpreter and a poet (Powada Shahir, a troubadour telling epic stories as he went from one village to another); and his father was an avant-garde playwright who addressed issues such as the devastating effects of immigration and its traumas through absurd situations in his plays. Patil, and before him, his family, has considered art as a method of resistance.

Amol K Patil has shown at the De Pont Museum in The Netherlands 2024, Gwangju Biennale 2024, Hayward Gallery in London 2023,Kunstenfestivaldesarts, in Brussels 2023, Documenta Fifteen , Kassel, Germany, 2022, Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kochi, India 2022-2023, Yokohama Triennale (Yokohama, 2020); Goethe- Institute / Max Mueller Bhavan (Mumbai, 2019), Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan (New Delhi, 2019), The Showroom (London, 2018), Tensta konsthall (Stockholm, 2017), Pompidou (Paris, 2017), Pune Biennale Habit-co Habit (Pune, 2017), New Galerie (Paris, 2016), Japan Foundation (Delhi, 2015); Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam, 2015), Kadist Art Foundation, (Paris, 2013).