Join us for the launch of Vikram Divecha’s publication Short Circuits, published following the occasion of his 2024 solo exhibition at Jameel Arts Centre. The launch event will feature Vikram Divecha in conversation with writer Robert T Kilroy. 

Vikram Divecha’s playful and poetic works rely on what he calls “found processes,” in which the artist inserts himself and observes how individuals navigate, experiment with, and bypass these systems.

Short Circuits features essays, interviews, and documentation that highlight Vikram Divecha’s interest in the often invisible structures of planning, construction, demolition and maintenance. It centres on his long-term collaborations with workers, contractors and decision-makers who shape the cities of the United Arab Emirates and beyond.

Vikram Divecha: Short Circuits
Edited by Dawn Ross and Lucas Morin
Texts by Sabih Ahmed, Vikram Divecha, Gayatri Gopinath, Robert T Kilroy, Lucas Morin, Dawn Ross
Published by Art Jameel and Press Works
14 x 21 cm (softcover)
160 pages
ISBN : 978-81-970506-1-9
Distributed by Art Jameel (UAE), Press Works (India), les presses du réel (Europe) and Public Knowledge Books (UK & USA).

Vikram Divecha is a Beirut-born artist who grew up in Mumbai and is based in the UAE. He holds an MFA in Visual Art from Columbia University and was a participant in the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study program. His work has been exhibited regionally and internationally at the 57th Venice Biennale’s UAE National Pavilion UAE, the 13th Sharjah Biennial, the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the Centre of Contemporary Art (Warsaw) and The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts (New York). He currently teaches as an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Art and Art History at the New York University Abu Dhabi.

Robert T. Kilroy is an art historian and lecturer specializing in the intersection of art, psychoanalysis, and contemporary subjectivity. He has taught at Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi and currently lectures at Limerick School of Art and Design in Ireland. A former Curator for Modern & Contemporary Art at the Louvre Abu Dhabi, Kilroy holds a PhD from Trinity College Dublin and is the author of Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain: One Hundred Years Later. His research and writings explore themes such as technology’s impact on art, globalism, and the materiality of images, with contributions in multiple languages. In his contribution to Short-Circuits, Robert brings these ideas to bear on the work of Vikram Divecha.