Lauding the Indian artistic duo, a curatorial note states that both have a truly unique signature style that they bring to the venue with a series, entitled ‘Match Fixed’. It’s a wickedly playful and a delightfully gaudy body of work that talks about sexual double standards, social hypocrisy and the impending clash of culture, caught in the midst of tradition and global aspiration in the new-age India.
The works satirize marriage practices in the country’s northern state of Punjab. Many young men of the thriving state incidentally immigrate abroad for realizing their career ambitions. They yet are pressured by their traditional families into arranged marriages and ‘sham weddings’ after finding for them nice ‘suitable’ local girls, an accompanying essay states. It adds:
“All too often, the fantasy wedding and honeymoon scenario is followed by an absentee husband who, having enjoyed his holiday and pocketed the dowry, returns to an overseas job with promises to send for his bride at some later date. When the visa papers and plane tickets never arrive, the “toy wife” is left at home alone with her family: abandoned, humiliated and ruined.With triumphs and tragedies, winners and losers, scheming and suspense, ‘Match Fixed’ has all the ingredients and ambience of a fiercely-contested fight to the finish. Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, hosting is a nonprofit, comprehensive art institution in Beijing. UCCA has been founded by collectors Guy and Myriam Ullens in November 2007. It presents exhibits of established and emerging artists from across the world.
“Thukral & Tagra envision this phenomenon as a sports match between two competing teams: The Runaway Grooms vs. The Holiday Wives and their fathers. The court upon which they play is decorated with trophies, ornate decorations, garish gifts, ceiling fans draped with flowing silk scarves and television sets playing moving interviews with real-life ‘holiday wives’, so to say.”
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