Rajkamal Kahlon is an American artist based in Berlin. In Kahlon’s work we witness an autopsy, a dissection of the visual legacies of empire and we are asked to reimagine political experience as an embodied, emotional subject. Kahlon’s studio based painting practice is rooted in archival research. Drawing on history, colonial archives and literature, her interdisciplinary research undergoes a process of visual transformation resulting in sensual, formally rigorous work. For instance, by using her own hand in redrawing and repainting the bodies of photographed native subjects, Kahlon creates symbolic spaces of rehabilitation for those voices which have been erased, distorted or maligned. Kahlon received her MFA in Painting and Drawing from California College of Art and is an alumna of the Whitney Independent Study Program. Her work has been exhibited in museums, foundations and biennials in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Kahlon is a 2019 recipient of the Villa Romana Prize.

Out of the House of Bondage: Reimagining the Aesthetics of Empire
An intensive with Rajkamal Kahlon
December 10 – 21, 2019

Week 1 Extended Introductions. Explain more about bell hooks, radical pedagogy and mutual recognition, my approach to teaching. Readings and viewings in class of artworks that address histories of slavery and colonialism.

Sample Reading/Viewings:
Dear Young Artist, William Pope L.
Art Matters and Art on my Mind, bell hooks
Imaginary Homelands, Salman Rushdie

Viewing in class:
Mona Hatoum, Eyes Skinned, 1998
Emily Jacir’s Change/Exchange (1998) and Where We Come From (2002-3)

Week 2 Each day 2 participants will present their work for 30 minutes each and lead us in a discussion on a text(s), artwork(s), artist(s), film(s), etc. that has been or is significant to the development of their work or ideas.