06-Apr-2017 08:18 PM
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Ranjit Hoskote (b.1969) is a cultural theorist, independent curator and poet. He is the author of nineteen books, which include five volumes of poetry; most recently, Vanishing Acts: New & Selected Poems 1985-2005 (Delhi: Penguin, 2006) and Die Ankunft der Vögel (München: Carl Hanser Verlag, 2006). Mr. Hoskote has also authored nine monographs on art and artists, some of which are Bharti Kher (New York: Jack Shainman Gallery, 2007), The Crafting of Reality: Sudhir Patwardhan, Drawings (Bombay: The Guild, 2008), and most recently, Zinny and Maidagen:Compartment/ Das Abteil (Frankfurt: Museum fur Moderne Kunst/Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther Konig, 2010) . He has collaborated on an artist book called Pale Ancestors (Bombay: Bodhi Art, 2008) with Atul Dodiya. He has co-authored a critical history of cultural confluence, Kampfabsage (München: Random House/ Blessing Verlag, 2007); and has curated twenty-one exhibitions of modern and contemporary art, including a mid-career retrospective of Atul Dodiya (Japan Foundation, Tokyo, 2001) and a lifetime retrospective of Jehangir Sabavala (National Gallery of Modern Art, Bombay and New Delhi, 2005-2006), and so on. Mr. Hoskote was co-curator of the trans-Asian collaborative curatorial project, ‘Under Construction’ (Japan Foundation, Tokyo and other Asian venues, 2001-2002), and of the 7th Gwangju Biennale (Korea, 2008) with artistic director Okwui Enwezor. He was a Fellow of the International Writing Program, University of Iowa (1995) and Writer-in-Residence at Villa Waldberta, München (2003). His poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. As General Secretary of the PEN All-India Centre, he has also been a vocal and articulate defender of cultural and artistic freedoms, and the rights of embattled minority groups, and was appointed Commissioner for India’s first ever national pavilion for the 54th Venice Biennale (2011). Ranjit Hoskote lives and works in Mumbai, Maharashtra.