Lot 322: SUBODH GUPTA

B.1964 CHIMTA stainless steel kitchen tongs and iron 124 by 119.5 by 57cm.; 48 3/4 by 47 by 18 1/2 in. Executed in 2005, this work is from an edition of 3.

Art & Public, Geneva Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

Considered to be one of the most influential Indian artists working today, Subodh Gupta’s extraordinarily innovative oeuvre defies categorisation and consistently transcends technical and creative boundaries. Born in Bihar in 1964, the artistic and social influences of Gupta’s homeland have served as a crucial source of creative stimuli throughout his career, leading to the formation of a remarkably distinctive body of work that projects a sense of universal significance. Gupta acknowledged the importance of his background in a recent interview, “I always work with the day-to-day life that strikes me. It’s all critically beautiful in content – it already contains so much subject… My life is my study.” (The artist, cited in Rituparna Som, ‘Man of Steel,’ in Vogue India, February 2009, p. 172). Chimta is an extraordinary example of Gupta’s unique artistic praxis: a grandly proportioned conglomeration of stainless steel and iron that seems to hover inexplicably between wall and ground. Composed of steel tongs, known as chimta, which are a traditionally used in the making of chapatti within Indian kitchens, Chimta wittily subverts the ostensibly banal purpose of an everyday item, elevating the tongs to the level of venerated artistic icon. This concept – the appropriation of a commonplace object as a work of art - arguably references the work of Marcel Duchamp, the artist whose ‘readymades’ altered the course of Twentieth Century art history. Yet there is an element of social commentary inherent within Gupta’s use of kitchen utensils, an idea reinforced by Ida Panicelli, “Domestic tools tied to the preparation of food inevitably brings into play the tension between accumulation and deprivation, a dichotomy certainly relevant to contemporary India… but one that is also meaningful around the globe.” (Ida Panicelli, ‘Subodh Gupta,’ in ArtForum, September 2011, New York NY, p. 345). Kitchenware has long been an abiding source of fascination for the artist, an influence distilled within Chimta in a brilliantly inventive manner through the cascade of tongs which seems to pulsate with a form of inner energy. Gupta recalled his childhood connection with the kitchen and its continuing importance within his art today, “I am particularly fond of kitchens. When I was a child, I considered it a place of worship, a kind of temple. For me, it is a place full of spirituality." (The artist cited in: Jérôme Neutres, Editor, New Delhi New Wave, Bologna 2007, p. 52.). Chimta appears to reflect this essence of sanctity and mysticism, inspiring wonder and awe within the onlooker in equal measure. Magnificently conceived in every respect, Chimta brilliantly epitomises the grandeur and sheer invention of Gupta’s works.