Subodh GUPTA: Inner Garden: Solo Exhibition

Subodh GUPTA (b. 1964), a renowned contemporary artist from India, has garnered international acclaim in the art world for his distinctive works that reinterpret everyday objects commonly found across India. By transforming ordinary items such as tiffin boxes, thali pans, bicycles, and milk cans into monumental forms, GUPTA challenges conventional notions of artistic value, striving to uncover new forms of beauty in the process. His body of work reflects a deep engagement with socio-cultural realities in Asia, which he explores through various mediums including sculpture, installation, painting, video, and performance, offering profound reflections on themes such as rapid urbanization, globalization, and cultural hybridity. This exhibition marks his first solo show in Korea in a decade, since 2014, and presents a diverse array of new works, including paintings, sculptures, and installations created this year.

 

The series of works on display centers on the spiritual process of developing an intimate relationship with nature. The new piece Stupa (2024), located on the basement, transforms the space into a meditative and sacred environment. The 'stupa' is a traditional Buddhist architectural structure. The body of the stupa, finished in white plaster, is embedded with kitchen utensils. The surfaces of these utensils, once used in homes, bear different traces of past lives. GUPTA's Stupa serves as a reliquary for the living and a humble monument honoring the fleeting nature of time. Within this vessel are the seven oceans and unnumbered stars I (2024) is a counter-relief work made by splitting a pot in half and placing the openings together, embedded in plaster. The title is borrowed from a poem by Kabir, an Indian philosopher and poet. The verse, which speaks of an ordinary pot containing the universe within, closely resonates with GUPTA's artistic vision.

 

Inner Garden (2024), exhibited on the first and third floors, is a series of paintings and sculptures that visually express emotions derived from reflections on communication and relationships with nature. The still life at the center of the paintings, with its fluid, dynamic form, symbolically reveals the powerful and resilient forces of nature. The series of sculpture of the same name is composed of flowerpots made from spoons, ladles, and stainless steel bowls. By reconfiguring these mass-produced industrial objects into delicate, nature-inspired forms like flowers, GUPTA creates a meditative garden landscape formed by these assembled objects. The title of the series Proust Mapping is borrowed from the 'Proust Effect,' wherein the utensils, each with its own history, memory, and traces of life, evoke old memories in the viewer's consciousness. GUPTA recontextualizes ordinary objects as symbolic elements that evoke cultural memory and spiritual resonance.

 

GUPTA's work has been highlighted in numerous major international biennales and has been featured in solo exhibitions across Asia, Europe, and the United States. His works are held in prestigious collections around the world, including the Tate Collection (UK), the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (USA), MMK Museum of Modern Art (Germany), National Gallery of Modern Art New Delhi (India), Sara Hildén Art Museum (Finland), Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (India), Centre Pompidou (France), Louis Vuitton Foundation (France), Fukuoka Asian Art Museum (Japan), Saatchi Collection (UK), François Pinault Collection (France), and Arario Museum (Korea).