Shilpa Gupta / India

India born 1976

The black ambiguous mass of Shilpa Gupta’s sculpture Untitled, 2012–15, stands in contrast to the sound it produces, which is based on a text by the artist that imagines a world in which people can move freely across national borders. The work continues her investigations into border-making in India, after the country was partitioned in 1947, and specifically into the Bangladeshi enclaves. The borders between these sovereign tracts of land are unclear, and their inhabitants’ lives are highly regulated. Gupta’s practice focuses on zones in which real and imagined divisions are played out, be they borderlines, within language, or ideas of censorship and security.

BIO

Gupta has participated in numerous international exhibitions, including her shared national representation of India and Pakistan at the Venice Biennale in 2015, The Generational: Younger Than Jesus Triennial at the New Museum, New York, in 2009, and biennales in Lyon, 2009, Gwangju, 2008, and Sydney, 2006, among others. Her work has been exhibited in international institutions, including the Tate Modern, 2001, and Serpentine Gallery, 2008, in London; Centre Pompidou in Paris, 2011; and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, 2010. A major solo exhibition Drawing in the Dark is being presented as a joint production by KIOSK, Gent; Bielefelder Kunstverein, Bielefeld; and La Synagogue de Delme Contemporary Art Centre, Delme, in 2017–18.