Ranjit Hoskote – författare

Between the Ticks of the Watch is the catalog to the exhibition of the same name at the Renaissance Society. The show featured artists Kevin Beasley, Peter Downsbrough, Goutam Ghosh, Falke Pisano, and Martha Wilson, who together presented a platform for considering doubt as both a state of mind and a pragmatic tool. Between the Ticks of the Watch traces how doubt can eat away at the foundation of understanding itself, calling into question the very possibility of knowledge—or at least demanding recognition of its limitations.  Featuring two new in-depth essays, a poetic text, and contributions by the artists featured in the exhibition, this catalog further presents doubt as a critical means for identifying new avenues of inquiry. The texts open space for the germination of novel forms and concepts, or questioning structures of power that have long been in place.

Reflections on the evolution and philosophical depth of Gieve Patel’s art, adorned with illustrations of his paintings.  To Break and to Branch is a collection of six essays on the artist Gieve Patel (1940–2023), written by poet, cultural theorist, and curator Ranjit Hoskote over nearly two decades, gathered together for the first time and accompanied by over fifty illustrations of Patel's paintings. In an introductory essay written especially for this edition, Hoskote looks back over the long friendship he shared with Patel, contextualizing it within the vibrant artistic milieu that was once special to Bombay, their home city: a milieu premised on a mutual curiosity that brought the arts together, hospitable to poetry, painting, theater, cinema, music, and architecture.  Embodying this spirit, Hoskote engages with Patel’s evolving oeuvre as a painter and his experiments with sculpture, while connecting them to his investments in poetry, theater, and his growing philosophical awareness of the more-than-human. Hoskote’s writings trace both the constant preoccupations and the changing interests that gave Patel’s art its distinctive character and reflect on the aesthetic, philosophical, and political dimensions of Patel’s gradual movement from a human-centric understanding of the world to a more holistic view as generated and sustained by interrelationships across orders of being.

Commenting on Hoskote's poetry on the Poetry International website, the poet and editor Arundhathi Subramaniam observes: "His writing has revealed a consistent and exceptional brilliance in its treatment of image. Hoskote's metaphors are finely wrought, luminous and sensuous, combining an artisanal virtuosity with passion, turning each poem into a many-angled, multifaced experience."

Horror Patriae, the 2024 edition of steirischer herbst, tackled nostalgic and imaginary constructions of nationhood, juxtaposing them with neglected and silenced stories of strange encounters, hybrids, and happy miscegenation Nationalism has made a spectacular comeback, with tribalism, particularism, and local pride embraced across the political spectrum. As the post–Cold War order erodes, the nation appears as a refuge, yet it remains an illusory one, an “imagined community,” as Benedict Anderson put it. Combining essays and conversations, the festival's reader further examines the new nationalisms and how to resist them.