shilpa gupta

This exhibition begins with the premise that the classical sculptural object is no longer tenable, and that the most interesting sculpture being produced today emerges from a science of dematerialized objects.

Thus, the physical experience of this exhibition will not be programmed for the conventional ‘viewer looks at objects held in place’ situation. Instead, the objects that form my display comprise video footage of self-destruct sculpture; sculpture as the performance of moving parts; sculpture in a condition of meltdown and remaking; or sculpture that takes the viewer for a walk along a conceptual map studded with text.

In every period, practitioners of sculpture renew their ways of making in accord with the tendencies of their age. Today, therefore, sculptors interrogate solidity, monumentality and stasis – instead, they imbue their sculpture with various other qualities, including provisional fluidity, intimacy and remote presence.

Her last few works concentrated on the performative aspects of sculpture, as objects of art emplace and simultaneously displace contexts of spectatorship and vice versa. The displacement of object and meaning in the extended-sculpture realm challenges, even mocks received ideas about sculpture. This opens the door for two alternatives. On the one hand, we can re-objectify the object along different norms. On the other hand, we can move to a post-object sculpture: we can address the after-life of the object, looking for the lost sculptural qualities and finding them transformed/morphed, made anew.

Shilpa’s current works include highly politically charged photographs. The artist lives and works in Mumbai.