A place is defined not only by its spatial coordinates but also by its position in the temporal dimension; every place is inherently tied to when it exists and the meaning it accumulates over time—an archive of its histories.
An installation view of Jitish Kallat’s Public Notice 3 at the Art Institute in 2010
Gift of the artist. © 2024 Jitish Kallat
My work Public Notice 3 takes this idea to the Woman’s Board Grand Staircase, envisioning this defining architectural feature of the Art Institute of Chicago not only as a physical landmark and thoroughfare but as a temporal conduit to its rich historical past—an observation deck that changes the focal lengths at which we view the world.
We perform this shift of attention throughout each day, often without realizing it. We bring objects closer to us or move them farther away while observing them, sometimes narrowing our eyes to see more clearly. We think back and forth in time to calibrate the meaning of the present moment.
My work, in a sense, amplifies these gestures of observation to explore various space-time geometries, juxtaposing the past and the present, the telescopic and the microscopic, and the terrestrial and the cosmic, each yielding a different inflection of meaning. Some of my works reflect on the transient present, while others invoke the past through citations of historical utterances.
Public Notice 3 is the third in a trilogy of works created between 2003 and 2010, each evoking a momentous speech. The initial Public Notice used the words of India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, as he addressed a new nation in 1947, presenting a dream vision that would not come to pass, while Public Notice 2 gave form to a speech given by Mahatma Gandhi in 1930 that led to a nationwide civil disobedience movement.
An installation view of Public Notice, the first work in the series, at Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2003
The text of Nehru’s 1947 speech is burned into a series of mirrors, highlighting the failure of India’s founding vision and implicating the viewer in that failure.
An installation view of Public Notice 2 at Hangar Bicocca, Milan, 2007
Gandhi’s words from 1930 take the shape of simulated resin bones, juxtaposing Gandhi’s call for nonviolent resistance with the skeletal remains that evoke the long history of human aggression.
What distinguishes Public Notice 3 from the two earlier works in the trilogy, however, is its integral connection of the historic speech to the location of the artwork’s installation. The Grand Staircase and the adjacent Fullerton Hall stand on the site of the former auditorium where the First World’s Parliament of Religions began on September 11, 1893. This pioneering gathering brought together representatives from various religious traditions with the aim of advancing global interfaith dialogue and understanding. Public Notice 3 connects this significant historical event with one that occurred exactly 108 years later: the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
The auditorium of the First World’s Parliament of Religions, 1893
The seating for the auditorium covers the area that today is Fullerton Hall, while the auditorium’s stage—where speakers addressed attendees—was located where the Woman’s Board Grand Staircase now stands.
The number 108, while seemingly coincidental, holds profound significance in various wisdom traditions and ancient practices. Astronomically, the average distance between the sun and earth is approximately 108 times the sun’s diameter, and the distance between the earth and moon is approximately 108 times the moon’s diameter. In many cultures, 108 is seen as a complete cycle representing the interconnectedness of cosmic events. It is also the number of beads used in many rituals to mark a full circle.
Kallat’s study of the organizing principle for Public Notice 3
Time, place, and synchronicities became the organizing principle for me to conceive Public Notice 3, focusing on a seminal speech delivered at the 1893 Parliament by a Hindu monk, Swami Vivekananda, whose moving address advocated universal acceptance of all religious beliefs and practices.
Swami Vivekananda (seated, second from right) at the First World’s Parliament of Religions
“We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true.”
—Swami Vivekananda, 1893
With uncanny foresight, Vivekananda’s call for the transcendence of narrow identities and the rejection of fundamentalism resonates deeply today. He hoped for “the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal.”
Kallat’s study of text replication across three levels of the Grand Staircase
An installation view of Public Notice 3 at the Art Institute in 2010
Gift of the artist. © 2024 Jitish Kallat
In Public Notice 3, viewers encounter Vivekananda’s profound words on the risers of the stairs as they ascend the staircase. The text is doubled at the two entry points on the lower levels of the Grand Staircase and quadrupled at the four exit points at the top, multiplying like a visual echo. While descending, visitors step over beams of light cast from the illuminated text, refracted not in the seven colors of the light spectrum but in the five colors of the terrorism threat advisory scale created in March 2002 under the Bush administration in response to the September 11 attacks.
The Homeland Security color-coded terrorism risk scale
An installation view of Public Notice 3 at the Art Institute in 2010
Gift of the artist. © 2024 Jitish Kallat
As Public Notice 3 returns to the Art Institute of Chicago after 14 years, it finds a world marked by cultural clashes, political polarization, and numerous ongoing wars and insurgencies. In fact, it is estimated that there are currently close to 60 active conflicts worldwide, the highest number recorded since World War II. Moreover, the digital age has seen the rise of echo chambers, insular thinking, and separatist ideologies, severing us even further. It is this divided world to which Public Notice 3 returns, transforming the Grand Staircase into a prism that channels Vivekananda’s call for universal acceptance through its spectrum of hues, offering a perpetually renewable toolbox for reflection from the very site where he delivered his message.
—Jitish Kallat, artist
Public Notice 3 is now open and will run through September 2025.
