Closet Quarries
2008
acrylic paint, rubberstamps, plexiglas
68 x 68 in. I 173 x 173 cm
74 x 38 in. I 188 x 97 cm
Closet Quarries is a series of works made using rubber stamps, inspired by the intricate inlay patterns that embellish the Taj Mahal and other Mughal architectural landmarks across India and Pakistan. Reena Kallat recontextualizes the rubber stamp, traditionally a bureaucratic tool of control and record-keeping, as a means of inscribing memory and reclaiming erased identities, giving presence to the anonymous artisans whose names were never formally archived but etched themselves into stone.
The stamps bear names and symbols found engraved on the red sandstone surfaces of these sites, most notably along the rear wall of the Taj Mahal by the Yamuna River and the pathways leading to it. Similar inscriptions by artisans who built these monuments appear at other Mughal sites as well. Sourced from the archives of the Archaeological Survey of India, these mason marks interrupt the ornamental grammar of the inlays with another kind of inscription, one that speaks to the obscured histories of labour, memory, and the entanglement of fact and myth in the making of imperial grandeur. These works first captivate through surface beauty but embedded within are faint yet persistent traces of those who shaped these monuments, histories that lie just beneath what meets the eye.
