ThatPainter is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Learn More
Ratnabali Kant’s first performance, Rainbow of Desire, took place in Greece in September 1985: she painted her face and body in rainbow colors to express joy and hope amid darkness and difficulty. Her performance work continued until 2005, within a broader artistic career spanning five decades and including sculpture. Her path from sculpture and dance training to what she called “installation performance” helps explain how she brought the body, painted surfaces, movement and objects into a single visual language.
| # | Preview | Product | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
|
Art: The Definitive Visual Guide (DK Definitive Cultural Histories) | $22.85 | Buy on Amazon |
| 2 |
|
Warhol (Basic Art) | $15.59 | Buy on Amazon |
How sculpture, dance and Greece shaped Kant’s early work
Kant trained in sculpture at Santiniketan and Maharaja Sayajirao University in Baroda, where her teachers included Ramkinkar Baij, Somnath Hore and K. G. Subramanyan. Alongside sculpture, she studied Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Manipuri, Kathakali and Uday Shankar’s style. These strands—shaping material and choreographing a moving body—would meet in her later work.
From 1983 to 1987, Kant held a Greek government scholarship for doctoral research in Athens on dynamic elements in ancient Greek sculpture. She encountered artists and dance traditions in Greece, but said Greek folk dance did not directly influence her sculpture or performance. The distinction matters: her work drew on movement, yet she did not describe it as a simple import of Greek dance.
Free tools Windows power users keep installed
One-click scans. No signup required.
#1 Best Overall
Two early works made the body a changing image
At Greek sculptor Natalia Mela’s studio in September 1985, Kant presented Rainbow of Desire, her first body-based performance. She painted her face and body in rainbow colors, an image she associated with hope and joy amid hardship.
In Voices from Within (1986), she used copper mixed with gold paint, broken branches and green leaves. The materials evoked alienation and estrangement from identity and roots. The painted body and found natural elements did not function as separate decoration: together they carried the work’s emotional meaning.
Why Kant returned to India—and what Facing Nightmare Alone addressed
Somnath Hore encouraged Kant to return and introduce performance art to young artists in India. She came back in mid-1986. Her 1991 work Facing Nightmare Alone, presented at the India International Centre in Delhi, brought choreographic movement together with fiberglass figures to address Draupadi’s humiliation, violence against women and gender justice.
Kant described the piece as an interpretation of Draupadi’s disrobing. The fiberglass figures were not merely stage scenery; in her account, they occupied the work’s performative world alongside the moving artist. That relationship between a live body and constructed forms became central to her practice.
The Tool Desk
Outbyte PC Repair FREEClear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Outbyte Driver Updater FREEFix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →What Kant meant by “installation performance”
Kant called her synthesis of performance and installation “installation performance.” In a Scroll.in interview with Kamayani Sharma published on September 10, 2024, she said: “Installation performance” is the term under which I introduced and developed a performative visual art for the first time in India. She described the artist’s body as a medium for reflecting society and engaging viewers, with performer and installation forming an integrated whole.
In her account, this was not simply a performance staged beside an installation. The installation and the artist’s moving body shaped one another, while viewers encountered the work directly as an event. Kant also framed performance as a challenge to fixed, finished and commodified art objects. “To me, performance art is the art of resistance, and is constructive in its nature,” she said. Those are her descriptions of her own practice, not a universal definition shared by every artist or scholar.
Her works drew on sculpture, choreography, painting, poetry, music, ritual, theatre and video. Kant connected this intermedial approach to Indian aesthetic traditions in which art forms are interconnected. The Goethe-Institut Kolkata’s Kunst Kiosk — Ratnabali Kant also features her work and account of combining performance with installation.
Rank #2
- Length: 0.5in / 1cm, Height: 10.25in / 26cm, Width: 8.75in / 22cm
- By Klaus Honnef
- Hardcover
- 95 pages
- Imprint: Taschen
A selection of works from 1985 to 2005
The following works show how Kant shifted emphasis among materials and media; they are a selection, not a complete catalogue.
| Work | Year | Materials or approach |
|---|---|---|
| Rainbow of Desire | 1985 | Rainbow-colored face and body paint; hope and joy amid difficulty. |
| Voices from Within | 1986 | Copper mixed with gold paint, broken branches and green leaves; alienation and disconnection from roots. |
| Facing Nightmare Alone | 1991 | Choreographic movement and fiberglass figures; Draupadi, violence against women and gender justice. |
| I Feel Life to be Green | 1994 | Performance; broadcast by Doordarshan in 1996, according to Kant’s interview. |
| Death of Desire | 1996 | Ritual installation performance. |
| Red Under the Golden Halo | 2001 | Painting foregrounded. |
| Tree of Soul at the end of Rainbow | 2003 | Accompanied by video of Kant’s choreography. |
| The Last Performance | 2005 | Identified as her last performance piece. |
Her performance work ended in 2005; her wider practice did not
Kant said her last performance piece was in 2005. That marks the end of the performance period described in her profile, not the end of her artistic career. Sculpture remained part of her practice. At Delhi’s Garden of Five Senses, she made the public sculpture Children Reading (1996) with Kristine Michael and the bronze series Senses through Seasons (2002).
In February 2024, Bihar Museum in Patna mounted a retrospective of Kant’s five-decade career. The longer span encompasses her sculpture as well as performance; it should not be confused with five decades of performance-making.
Why documentation matters for an art that disappears
A live performance leaves a different record from a fixed sculpture. Kant recalled that early recordings were made on VHS and that she could not afford still photography. Videos later circulated as CDs and were projected at universities and art schools. She considers videography particularly suited to documenting a moving artwork: it preserves movement and duration in ways a single photograph cannot.
Her book Ephemeral Steps, Enduring Imprints (Raza Foundation, 2006) records her reflections. The Ministry of Culture’s Annual Report 2007–2008 records a lecture on installation performance art in India and the release of a CD associated with the book, on Kant’s installation performance from 1985 to 2005.
Recommended Free Tools
Kant’s chronology is important, but it is not a complete history of performance art in India. Scroll quotes art historian Rakhee Balaram’s 2022 essay: “The genesis of performance art in India, including the histories of the 1980s, has yet to be written…” Researcher Samudra Kajal Saikia, in an interview with Asia Art Archive in 2018 cited by Scroll, said Kant “borrowed elements from her everyday life to create performances.” Together, those observations place Kant’s contribution in view while leaving room for the wider history still to be told.
Quick Recap
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
