Shilpa Gupta’s works at Yvon Lambert, Paris

Yvon Lambert, Paris hosts a solo show of Indian artist Shilpa Gupta. She is based in the bustling city of Mumbai, full of racial as well religious diversity. These factors tend to play vital roles in her art practice.

Gupta, one of the country’s most talented young artists, creates fabulous works using interactive video, objects, photographs, sound and public performances. She tries to examine themes like religion, the ‘psychology’ of fear, desire and false notions of security.

A curatorial note elaborates to state: “She is interested in notions of perception, and employs interaction as a means of inviting viewers to take part in exploring this.” Her sculpture on show, entitled ‘Threat’, caries this facets. In it countless pieces of soap are embossed with the word ‘threat’. They are invited to take a piece of it home to be used.

Several of Shilpa Gupta projects over the years have touched upon the theme of border crisis between warring neighbors India and Pakistan, and the resulting tension as well as loss of life in Kashmir. The curator explains: “Her video installation ‘Hardly bear to Speak’ comprises fours monitors that show vibrating portraits of the four judges appointed to decide the division of India and Pakistan.

The relationships were so tendentious, however, that they ‘could hardly bear to speak to each other’, further creating further deadlock.” Her empathy towards the scenario in Kashmir is visible in many of her art pieces. Her approach to the subject of war, though, is universal. The viewer can relate to them in terms of all conflict in the world.

Her works have also been shown at the Essl Museum, Austria in the exhibit ‘Chalo! India’, and at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark in the exhibit ‘The World is Yours’. Her recent Biennale participations are Gwangju Biennale, Korea; the Yokohama International Triennale, Japan (curator Hans Ulrich Obrist) and Seville International Biennal of Contemporary Art.

Recent exhibitions of hers comprise the solo ‘While I Sleep’ at le Laboratoire, and The Generational: Younger than Jesus’, New Museum, New York; MAC/VAL Museum of Contemporary Art, Val-de-Marne, France.

Yvon Lambert opened the gallery in Paris in 1967. Yvon Lambert New York was started in 2003. Lauding Shilpa Gupta’s artistic achievements, a press release from the gallery mentions, “She has shown at some of the most important biennales and triennials in the world. Her work travels across cultural borders. It’s tenacious and thought provoking, as the artist permits the more dangerous contents of the mind, as well as private and collective fears, to take form as art.”

The show is on view until 15th October 2009. She will also show her creations at the Lyon Biennale in September 2009.