Which Side Are You On?

In her practice, Rajkamal Kahlon recuperates drawing and painting as sights of aesthetic and political resistance. Submitting the lingering spectre of colonialism in historical and contemporary archives to a transformative process of deconstruction and intervention, the artist proposes painting as a strategy of radical care. Her sensual, humorous, formally rigorous artworks address the reclamation of humanity for racialised, gendered and indigenous communities that have been distorted, erased or maligned, thus allowing for their rehabilitation.

This catalogue documents a selection of works from over 20 years of Kahlon’s practice. In addition to comprehensive visual material, the publication features three new essays as well as an extensive interview with the artist. 

Rajkamal Kahlon (b. 1974, Auburn, CA) is an American artist living and working in Berlin, Germany. Kahlon received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of California, Davis, CA, and a Master of Fine Arts in Painting and Drawing from the California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA. She is an alumna of Skowhegan and the Whitney ISP and is a professor of painting at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg, Germany. Kahlon has held solo exhibitions at Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria; Gallery Wedding, Berlin, Germany; P·P·O·W, New York, NY; Wilhelm Hack Museum, Ludwigshafen, Germany; and Kunstverein Konstanz, Germany; among others. Her work has been featured in group exhibitions at Stadtmuseum Dresden, Germany; Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, Poland; Taipei Fine Art Museum, Taipei, Taiwan; Artists Space, New York, NY; Museo Universitario Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City, Mexico; Museum of Contemporary Art, Rijeka, Croatia; among others. She has been awarded the Hans and Lea Grundig Prize, Villa Romana Prize, Joan Mitchell Painting and Sculpture Award, Pollock Krasner Award, and has completed residencies and fellowships at American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) National Security Project, New York, NY; Center for Book Arts, New York, NY; and Newhouse Center for Humanities, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA; among others.