Chitra Ganesh

Chitra Ganesh (b. 1975 in Brooklyn, New York, USA) received a BA in Art-Semiotics and Comparative Literature from Brown University in Providence, RI, in 1996. He attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2001 and received an MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University, New York, in 2002. He lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Over twenty years of work, Chitra Ganesh has developed an extensive body of work based on drawing and painting, which has evolved to encompass animations, wall drawings, collages, computer generated imagery, video and sculpture. Through studies of literature, semiotics, queer theory, science fiction, and historical and mythical texts, Ganesh attempts to reconcile representations of femininity, sexuality, and power absent from artistic and literary canons. He often draws on visual forms from the South Asian subcontinent, such as mythology, comics and graphic art, and is currently negotiating his relationship to some of these images with the rise of right-wing Hindu fundamentalism in India.

Ganesh's work has been exhibited widely in the United States and internationally, including solo exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum (New York), MoMA PS1 (New York), The Kitchen (New York), the Rubin Museum of Art (New York), the Andy Warhol Museum (Pennsylvania), the Kunsthalle Gothenburg (Sweden), and Times Square (New York). His work has also been shown in major group exhibitions at the Walker Art Center, MN; the Baltimore Museum of Art, MD; the Queens Museum of Art, NY; the Asia Society, NY; the Bronx Museum, NY; the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX; the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, CA; the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, CA; the Boca Raton Museum of Art, FL; the Hayward Gallery, London, UK; the Saatchi Museum, London, UK: The Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Italy; the Valencian Institute of Modern Art, Italy; the ZKM Center for Art and Media, Germany; the Göteborgs Konsthall, Germany; the Arthotek Kunstverein, Göttingen, Germany; the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, China; the Gwangju Centre for Contemporary Art, Korea; the Prince of Wales Museum, Mumbai, India; the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi, India; the Devi Art Foundation, India; the Kochi Biennale, India; and the Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh, among others.

Ganesh's work is represented in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Brooklyn Museum, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; the Ford Foundation, New York; University of Michigan Museum of Art, MI; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, PA; Devi Art Foundation, India; Kiran Nadar Museum, Delhi, India; Ishara Foundation, Dubai; Saatchi Collection, London, UK; Tai Kwun Foundation, Hong Kong; and Deutsche Bank, among others.

Ganesh has received grants and awards from numerous foundations and organizations, including the New York Foundation for the Arts, Printed Matter, the Art Matters Foundation, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Joan Mitchell Foundation, the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University, the Pollock Krasner Foundation and the Ford Foundation.

chitra's experience working with artist-centered organizations is rooted in the queer and South Asian communities, and includes serving on the Board of Directors of the South Asian Women's Creative Collective (1998-2004) and as a member of SLAAAP! Sexually Liberated Asian Artist Activist People (1999-2002). Ganesh currently serves on the Board of Governors of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (since 2003). More information about his work can be found at chitraganesh.com.