PARIS.- Monnaie de Paris presents « Adda / Rendez-vous», the first retrospective exhibition in France of internationally acclaimed contemporary artist, Subodh Gupta. Gupta (b. 1964) lives and works in Delhi and had trained as a painter before going on to work with a variety of media including painting, performance, video, photography, sculpture, and installation.
Subodh Gupta sees the exhibition as a place for meetings, rendezvous that would trigger discussions, exchanges and debates just like the indhi concept «Adda». Showcasing the diversity of Subodh Gupta’s practice, the exhibition features iconic sculptures using stainless steels pots and pans, such as Very Hungry God (2006), for which Gupta is best known and cast found objects, such as Two Cows (2003), alongside very new works, like Unknown Treasure (2017) and the video titled Seven Billion Light Years (2016). While varied in material, the body of work is defined by the artist’s continuous exploration of ritual and spirituality in everyday life.
As the kitchen is the centre of every Indian household, Gupta’s practice too is grounded in the quotidian pantry and it is from here that he reflects on not only personal and communal practices, but also on how often intimate and seemingly insignificant objects and experiences can offer a glimpse into the cosmos at large.
The exhibition takes place in the historic salons of 11 Conti along the banks of the Seine, extends up the main stairway and continues in the inner courtyard of the Monnaie de Paris with monumental sculptures conceived especially for this retrospective. The range of works in the exhibition give insight into the considered use of scale, material, and “the readymade” in Gupta’s oeuvre. Selected pieces will be on display in conversation with the Monnaie’s permanent collection of metal artifacts to encourage reflection on the medium of metal both in terms of its symbolic value as well as the technical and artistic skill required to manipulate and bring meaning to it.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a bilingual publication (in French and English) covering the exhibited works, an introduction, a series of essays and a unique, commented chronology of Subodh Gupta’s career. It will be published by Skira Editions.
This exhibition is curated by Camille Morineau, Director of Exhibitions and Collections at the Monnaie de Paris and Mathilde de Croix, exhibition curator at the Monnaie de Paris,
Subodh Gupta was born in 1964 in Khagaul, Bihar, India. He studied at the College of Art, Patna before moving to New Delhi where he currently lives and works. The artist oscillates between diverse media, collating disjointed objects and experiences into complete images, cast in metal, etched on a canvas, or performed through the body. The inherently transient nature of memory builds in magnificently with the artistic urge to preserve for posterity the vestiges of what is seen, heard, felt, thought or believed.
Gupta is best known for working with everyday objects that are ubiquitous throughout India, such as mass-produced stainless steel utensils, bicycles, and milk pails.
From these ordinary items the artist produces works that reflect on universal issues including migration, globalisation, and the cosmos. Subodh Gupta’s work exemplifies the iconography of a banal, precarious, edgy and bustling everyday life, often monumental in magnitude, blown out of proportions, peeled out of their ordinary skins by their sheer mass and volume.
His recent projects include group and solo exhibitions at Sackler Gallery, Washington DC, USA (2017), Mead Gallery, Warwick, UK (2017), Savannah College of Art & Design, Savannah, USA (2016), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA (2016), Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK (2015), and The Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany (2014).
