Kunstakademiet i Trondheim
Emerging as a prominent Indian artist, Praneet Soi (b. 1971, Kolkata, West Bengal, India) currently divides his time between Amsterdam and India.
Praneet Soi is currently participating in the first Indian National Pavilion at the 54th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia, opening on 1st of June 2011. The Indian Pavilion, located in the Arsenale, features four artists and is curated by Ranjit Hoskote. Soi’s work for this pavilion involves a large-scale mural accompanied by a slide installation, Kumartuli Printer, Notes on Labor and a work-station.
A monograph, the artist’s first, was released to coincide with the opening of the Indian Pavilion. The publication was presented as a collection of four booklets, one containing a selection of imagery from his archive, the second his drawings, the third his sight specific projects and paintings and the fourth texts by Charles Esche and Ranjit Hoskote.
Soi has attended the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam(2002-2003); Skowhegan, Maine(2001); University of California, San Diego(1999-2001) and the Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda, India(1990-1996). At UCSD Soi developed a pivotal friendship with the filmmaker and co-founder of the Dziga Vertov Group Jean-Pierre Gorin. Working in a wide range of media, spanning painting, drawing, collage, text, audio-visual assemblages and intertwining the languages of visual culture, literature, cinema and architecture, Soi suggests possibilities for imagining a new human condition, marked by intensified forces of modernity and progress.
Recent exhibitions include Centro Cultural Montehermoso Kulturunea, Vitoria-Gasteiz; Artspace, Sydney; de Appel, Amsterdam; Zacheta National gallery of Art Warsaw, Museo Experimental El Eco, Mexico City and CAC Vilnius. His work was shown recently at CIMA, Kolkata, 2011;Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, 2010; 1st Ural Industrial Biennial, Ekaterinburg, 2010; 14th Vilnius Painting Triennial, CAC, Vilnius, 2010; CACSA, Adelaide, 2010; Galerie Martin Van Zomeren, Amsterdam, 2009; Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven, 2009 and the 7th Gwangju Biennale, South Korea, 2008. Soi’s work was featured at numerous art fairs over the past few years such as Liste, Basel; Armory Show, New York; Art Rotterdam, Rotterdam; Arco, Madrid; Fiac, Paris; Art Summit, New Delhi, and Art Cologne. His work is a part of prominent collections in India and abroad.