BOOK: Shilpa Gupta-Phaidon Publications

The first monograph dedicated to Shilpa Gupta one of today’s leading and thought-provoking Indian visual artists published by Phaidon Publications. Shilpa Gupta is internationally known for her profound and socially engaged multi-faceted practice. Her work is an ongoing exploration of how human actions and interactions are subjected to a range of external and internal biddings, from socio-political constructs to personal relationships and technology. The synaesthetic nature of her practice is rooted in the post-liberalizing city of Mumbai in India, where she grew up in the 1990s, and the complex political landscape in South Asia. “Untitled” (2009), exhibited at the 2019 Venice Biennale, is a large mechanical gate, not unlike one you might find guarding private driveways in exclusive neighbourhoods. Gupta’s gate, however, has a menacing aggression all its own. As it swings back and forth as if haunted, it hits the gallery wall with force, cracking and breaking it. Her flapboards, such as “Words Come from Ears” (2017–18), resemble utilitarian devices at airports or train stations, yet they also appear conscious, displaying words that don’t convey information but rather surprise the viewer with phrases that might invert or question conventional moralities. “For, In Your Tongue, I Can Not Fit” is a title based on a poem by the fourteenth-century Azerbaijani poet Nesimi that Gupta has used for two related works (2017–18). The result of Gupta’s research into poets who have been jailed but whose work remains undimmed, one work is a large-scale multi-channel sound installation that gives voice to 100 poets who have been jailed over the centuries, while the other is a series of bookshelves with books of poetry by imprisoned poets. Each book on the shelf is made of gunmetal and is inscribed with a poem of resistance.-Dimitris Lempesis