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Born and raised in Kalikapur, a village on the coast of Orissa, and presently living in the cosmopolitan city of New Delhi, Sudhanshu Sutar has personally experienced the wide gulf between rural and urban life in India. As a result, the artist's body of work frequently combines an almost naïve idealism and empathy for the common man with the harsh realities of surviving metropolitan life. His works, straddling several genres, reflect the... Born and raised in Kalikapur, a village on the coast of Orissa, and presently living in the cosmopolitan city of New Delhi, Sudhanshu Sutar has personally experienced the wide gulf between rural and urban life in India. As a result, the artist's body of work frequently combines an almost naïve idealism and empathy for the common man with the harsh realities of surviving metropolitan life. His works, straddling several genres, reflect the aspirations, struggles and disenchantment of India's large rural population as they face the sweep of urbanization.

In the present lot, an intricately constructed, metaphorical installation, Sutar explores what he sees as the largely urban problems of celebrity, greed, exploitation and corruption through the motif of the crab, whose characteristic behaviour he finds startlingly similar to that of humans. The artist remembers these crabs from the many hours he spent on the beaches of Orissa during his childhood, and has used them as a motif in several of his earlier works as well, albeit in different formats. He recalls fishermen's baskets brimming with crabs, each clambering on top of the others to get out, but, at the same time, using their pincers to pull those that got anywhere close to the edges back in. "In his allegorical installation Sudhanshu Sutar harnesses the icon of ‘Dusrath', the ten legged crab to make a powerful statement on the socio-economic environment prevalent in the country today. Imbuing the marine creature with almost human attributes he sets up an elaborate narrative which speaks volumes about the self-serving interests of our leaders in all spheres of life" (Meera Menezes, "When Push Comes to Shove", SH Contemporary, The Mint exhibition catalogue, 2008, not paginated).

Individually casting, assembling and colouring sixty crabs, and then painting each with photorealist portraits of prominent Indians from the fields of politics, industry, film and the arts, Sutar caricatures the idea that the selfish, competitive nature of contemporary society may soon overshadow its selfless, altruistic side. The crabs are arranged randomly around the globe, some climbing ladders, others crowding around the base, inviting viewers to read their interactions in several different ways. Including a sixty-first crab in the mix, Sutar adds a touch of humour to the work, "…a streak of subversiveness that the artist invites us to discover". This crab, whose carapace bears the artist's own likeness, sits far removed from the others, "…observing the free for all melee and contemplating whether to join the fray or maintain a dignified distance. He is bemused by the games being played and remarks a trifle sarcastically ‘We have two legs but it is amazing how we develop ten when we want to pull people down'" (Ibid.).

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