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Subodh Gupta's work centres on the transformation of the urban Indian middle class, through the everyday objects that are emblematic of an economic shift. He refers not to the disenfranchised subaltern that was symbolic of urban India in the 1970s and 80s, but the physically transient and economically mobile Indian and his material desires. He also personalizes this shift by making references to his own identity, replete with its connotations of... Subodh Gupta's work centres on the transformation of the urban Indian middle class, through the everyday objects that are emblematic of an economic shift. He refers not to the disenfranchised subaltern that was symbolic of urban India in the 1970s and 80s, but the physically transient and economically mobile Indian and his material desires. He also personalizes this shift by making references to his own identity, replete with its connotations of political and economic rurality, and his subsequent move to an urban Delhi.

"Subodh Gupta's recent works portray objects and images of indecisive moments and cultural fluctuations. During the past decade, this art has employed certain clichéd emblems of India: the cow, stainless steel kitchen articles, the scooter, cow dung cakes, his own persona as a man from a village in Bihar. All along, Gupta's purpose was two-fold - to both edify such emblems and to critique them. Since his aim is to both elevate and castigate, his predilection is usually for images and objects which already possess an internal hybridity, which already appear to be comically confused themselves… Throughout his works in sculpture, painting, photography, video and performance, Gupta investigates the inherent anomalies of representation as it is called upon to construct identities both personal and of the wider body politic" (Peter Nagy, "Transitory Indecisions and Fluctuating Monuments", Subodh Gupta, Nature Morte, New Delhi, and Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai, 2006, p. 6).

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