Lot 27: Chintan Upadhyay , New Indians installation with thirty-three sculptures fiberglass, wood, gold leaf and acrylic paint

installation with thirty-three sculptures fiberglass, wood, gold leaf and acrylic paint

measurements each 36 1/2 in. by 35 3/4 in. alternate measurements each 92.7 by 91 cm.

executed 2007
'Take one simple example of Cloning, one of the bio-technological means that has enabled man to subject everything to the process of simulation, programming, and manage everything genetically and neurologically. The process shows an incapability of braving through our own diversity and reducing our existence to pathological eternity of self-replicating cells to our viral origins as sexless immortal beings. It reduces [the] history of mankind to a meaningless clutter of words and abates it to a meiotic decay or to an activity of composting machine.' The very murder of the real is the concern that Chintan is putting forward through a series of his efforts for [the] last few years. For Chintan, the sculptures and his paintings serve as units of cultural information, symbols of political memes, they look like cyberblitzs, kind of cyber game objects, substance less, disinvested of material inertia, they represent the utilitarian de-spiritualized universe and open up the possibilities of new realms of reality. The realities here are 'not real' realities and their domains are nothing but false kingdoms, 'to STAGE it in a fake spectacle' as Lacan calls. Subjecting of body as an artificial device to replace the body is one of the concerns that Chintan has in his mind. Jean Baudrillard has defined the problem as, 'a genetic formula inscribed in each cell that becomes the veritable modern prosthesis of a body... If the prosthesis is commonly an artifact that supplements a failing organ, or the instrumental extension of a body, then the DNA molecule, which contains all information relative to a body, is the prosthesis par excellence, the one that will allow for the indefinite extension of this body by the body itself - this body itself being nothing but an indefinite series of prostheses.". Baudrillard uses concept of 'simulacra' to describe the state of image and representation which our postmodern moment has created, For him, there are no longer any 'true' or essential identities, instead by virtue of our state [of] hyper commoditization we are left with [a] series of detached, distanced, alienated and isolated images which are merely 'copies of copy' holding no claims to the essential truth.' (Extract from an essay by Sanjeev Khandekar on Chintan Upadhyay's recent works).