Neha Choksi by Hugo Glendinning

Neha Choksi (b. 1973, USA) works in Inglewood, California and in Bombay, India. Choksi received her BA in art and Greek from University of California, Los Angeles, in 1997, and MA in classics from Columbia University, in 2000.

Choksi works in multiple media, across disciplines and at times collaboratively and in unconventional settings to explore how we seek, experience and acknowledge losses and transformations in material, temporal and psychological terms.  Increasingly her work includes her own intellectual, cultural and social contexts.  She works by setting up simple situations and memorable interventions in the lives of everything--from a stone to a plant, from animal to self, from friends to institutions--disrupting logic to open a space for poetry, absurdity, humor, surprise and existential insight.

Her work has been exhibited or performed at Dhaka Art Summit (solo, 2018; group 2016); Manchester Art Gallery (solo, 2017); LAMOA at Occidental College, Los Angeles (solo, 2017); Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles (solo, 2017); Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery (2017); Project 88, Mumbai (solos 2016, 2013, 2010, 2009, 2007); 20th Sydney Biennale (commission, 2016); Hayward Gallery Project Space, London (solo, 2015); Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2014); Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, California (2013); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2013); John Hansard Gallery, Southampton, UK (3-person, 2012); Asia Pacific Triennial, QAGOMA, Brisbane (2012); Shanghai Biennale (2012); Wanås Foundation and Kristianstads Konsthall, Sweden (2012; the 10th Venice Architecture Biennale (2006); among others. She has upcoming exhibitions at Hammer Museum (biennial, 2018); 18th Street Arts Center (commission, 2018); University Art Museum, CSU Long Beach (solo, 2019). She was awarded the India Today Best New Media Artist of the Year Award (2017) and the designation of Cultural Trailblazer by the City of Los Angeles DCA (2017/2018). She is on the editorial board of the Los Angeles-based arts journal, X-TRA. Her work is represented by Project 88, Mumbai.

The Book and letter Joshua Whitehead wrote that was mentioned in the interview.

Neha Choksi, Faith in friction, 2017. 7-channel 4K video installation transferred to HD, each channel with stereo sound, 36 min loop. As installed at the Manchester Art Gallery. All images courtesy the artist and Project 88.

Production stills from Faith in friction, 2017. 7-channel 4K video installation transferred to HD, each channel with stereo sound, 36 min loop. All images courtesy the artist and Project 88.

Neha Choksi, The Sun’s Rehearsal / In Memory of the Last Sunset, 2016. One image on wallpaper digitally generated by OmniCosm Studios (Hollywood); seven photographically generated images on wallpaper underneath; freestanding wall with cutout; curtain; activated by performance and interaction in a collaboration with dance artist Alice Cummins. Installation at Carriageworks, Sydney. Commissioned by the 20th Biennale of Sydney. Courtesy the artist and Project 88, Mumbai. Top Photograph: Neha Choksi. Bottom Photograph: Document Photography.