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Lot 80

 

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Born in the town of Khagaul, Bihar, "The building blocks of Subodh Gupta’s artistic vocabulary include an array of gleaming readymades. Gupta has used scooter, bicycles, steel utensils, and even a spliced Ambassador, among other ubiquitous and identifiably Indian ‘items’ peculiar to the state and country of his birth, to map transitions in cultural history and record the static of rural/urban migrations. In the process, he throws up an ironical... Born in the town of Khagaul, Bihar, "The building blocks of Subodh Gupta’s artistic vocabulary include an array of gleaming readymades. Gupta has used scooter, bicycles, steel utensils, and even a spliced Ambassador, among other ubiquitous and identifiably Indian ‘items’ peculiar to the state and country of his birth, to map transitions in cultural history and record the static of rural/urban migrations. In the process, he throws up an ironical commentary on home, nation, racism, casteism and the inherent contradictions of globalization" (Anupa Mehta, "Global Local", India 20: Conversations with Contemporary Artists, Mapin Publishing, Ahmedabad, 2007, p. 178).

In a slight departure from his earlier canvases that seemed to brim with the polished steel kitchenware common to middle-class homes across India, the present lot depicts a collection of old, battered vessels set against a virulent pink background dripping with paint. Hinting, perhaps, at a rawness existing beneath the shining facades presented by advocates of globalization, Gupta highlights the plight of the marginalized and dislocated in this work. In doing so, the artist successfully shifts the viewer’s focus from the global to the local, and then back again, but this time with a new, informed perspective.

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