Saturday, April 13, 2013

Career trajectory of Thukral and Tagra

Thukral and Tagra have shot to fame in the international art scene in the past decade or so, having exhibited extensively worldwide. In 2011, their pieces were included in the ‘Indian Highway IV’ exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Lyon in France (which later traveled to the MAXXI Museum, Rome) apart from ‘Paris-Delhi-Bombay…’ exhibition at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

Both Jiten Thukral (born in 1976 in Jalandhar, and Sumir Tagra (born 1979 in New Delhi) studied at the Delhi College of Art in the mid 1990s. It was a decade of marked change as the country experiencing an influx of several new ideas, images, products, and media. In the backdrop of this social milieu and personal motivations, this is how the duo’s career was shaped: 

Their foray into the domains of graphic & product design, commercial interior design and advertising continues to influence their art, and still remains at the core of it. As T & T aver, ‘the graphics and design field teaches one exactly how to present an idea. It’s an essential aspect of our work - a blur between an artistic expression and a solution.’

The two have created installations especially for Beijing-based Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art (2010); the Asia Pacific Triennale at Brisbane’s Queensland Art Gallery (2009); and the Art Statements section of the 2007 Art Basel. Their work has also been featured in many other large survey showcases of contemporary Indian art at prestigious institutions such as Denmark’s Arken Museum of Modern Art (2012), the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo (2008), and Vienna’s Essl Museum (2009). They were artists in residence at the Singapore Tyler Print Institute (2010).

Various top galleries in India and abroad have presented solo shows of their unconventional work. These include Nature Morte (New Delhi and Berlin); Hilger Contemporary (Vienna); Bose Pacia (New York);  Barry Keldoulis (Sydney); Arario (Seoul); Chatterjee & Lal (Mumbai); and Tokyo Gallery (Tokyo). They are presently working on projects with the Italian fashion house Etro and the German porcelain manufacturer Meissen.

The artist duo lives and works in the New Delhi suburb of Gurgaon.

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