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SHILPA GUPTA (B. 1976) BlindStars StarsBlind animated light installation 192 in. (487.7 cm.) diameter Executed in 2008; number three from an edition of three
Shilpa Gupta, an interdisciplinary conceptual artist based in Mumbai, is known for her multimedia oeuvre that includes photography, interactive digital installations, sound and light based works and performance. Her works are politically informed and often confront viewers with contemporary issues, from border security to intersections of religion and technology. The artist’s works were shown as part of the Venice Biennale in 2019, and at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale in 2018. Gupta’s work is regularly featured at major museums and institutions around the world. In 2010, the OK Center for Contemporary Art in Linz held a ten year survey show of her practice.
The present lot, an animated light installation, is comprised of small string lights arranged in a halo-like composition, spelling out the words ‘blind’ and ‘stars’ four times each. The words pulse on and off slowly, leaving a grave, lingering afterglow. Describing the work, curator Tereza de Arruda notes that it “refers to the social expectations mainly in societies with flexible borders between its social classes/castes. The object is made up of an interplay of lights that alternate to make the words partially visible. They remain in the shadow and can only be seen when the lights that compose a given word are turned on. The brightness of the words can make it hard to see them, just like the fake dazzle of certain artificial contexts. With a population consisting mainly of young people, this segment of Indian society allows itself to be misled by illusions and promises spread mainly by the communication media” (T. Arruda, India! Lado a Lado, Sao Paulo, 2011, p. 88).
While the shuffled combination of ‘blind’ and ‘stars’ can convey a number of meanings, it is clear that a tension exists between the two ideas; that there is an ominous irony living between dazzling illumination and lack of sight. With the momentous size and eye-catching medium of this work, Gupta confronts her viewers, challenging us to acknowledge and hopefully move past the illusions we cultivate and live with.
“In Gupta’s hands, the line is a marker of political geometry. She recasts, in a political sense, Paul Klee’s idea of the image as an outcome of taking the line for a walk [...] Gupta’s repurposing of Klee is symptomatic of a shift from the modernist concerns of an earlier generation, fixated on surrealism and abstraction, to a contemporary conceptualist practice that is concerned with linguistic complexity and the unfolding repertoire of the performative. Gupta’s line is a marker of territory and exit routes; it is a major trope in her interrogation of the prevailing discourses of order and control [...] “Blind Stars_Stars Blind”, [is] a line of words that forms a circle of yellow light, words fading in and out, dancing with changing partners to form a segue of shuffled meanings. The slow drug of poetry illuminates a simple but profound paradox: What are you looking at – it asks us – the corona or the eclipse?” (N. Adajania, ‘Where to Draw the Line?’, BlindStars StarsBlind, exhibition catalogue, Berlin, 2008, p. 5).