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Lot Essay
I work with my childhood memories. Today, when I use stainless steel utensils in my work, people say I'm taking advantage of a Bihari scenario. It's a source of laughter for me. I am making art, not branding India. I make very contemporary artworks. My work emerges from the mundane, from my surroundings.
(Subodh Gupta, Artist Statement, Anupa Mehta, India 20: Conversations with Contemporary Artists, Mapin Publishing, Ahmedabad, 2007, p. 180)
Gupta often likens the modern day kitchen to a secular temple, as a central axis to the home, while referring to his vessels as idols and/or hungry gods. "When I was small, I saw it [the kitchen] as a place to pray. A kind of temple. For me it's a place full of spirituality." (Subodh Gupta to Nicholas Bourriaud, 'On Cultural Precarity: A Letter to Subodh Gupta,' Subodh Gupta, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, 2008, p. 5). While on the one hand he treats his subject matter with reverence, he also pokes fun at the materialism that has shifted India's focus away from the spiritual. At once ordinary and sacred, possessing both a utilitarian function and mythic aura these simple, mass produced bowls with their potbellied shape also symbolize life; the pregnant womb and akshaya paatram; the vessel which never empties. Feast for Hundred and Eight Gods 3 is in part influenced by Hindu temple rituals from its architectonic structure that references both the outer superstructure as well as the domestic shrine, all of which connote the mythical Mount Meru and the astrological significance of the auspicious number 108. Gupta employs these stainless steel implements as a kind of Duchampian style ready-made: piling them into the shape of temples, hanging them precariously from the ceiling and in the spirit of Claes Oldenburg, magnifying a vessel to mammoth proportions.
(Subodh Gupta, Artist Statement, Anupa Mehta, India 20: Conversations with Contemporary Artists, Mapin Publishing, Ahmedabad, 2007, p. 180)
Gupta often likens the modern day kitchen to a secular temple, as a central axis to the home, while referring to his vessels as idols and/or hungry gods. "When I was small, I saw it [the kitchen] as a place to pray. A kind of temple. For me it's a place full of spirituality." (Subodh Gupta to Nicholas Bourriaud, 'On Cultural Precarity: A Letter to Subodh Gupta,' Subodh Gupta, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, 2008, p. 5). While on the one hand he treats his subject matter with reverence, he also pokes fun at the materialism that has shifted India's focus away from the spiritual. At once ordinary and sacred, possessing both a utilitarian function and mythic aura these simple, mass produced bowls with their potbellied shape also symbolize life; the pregnant womb and akshaya paatram; the vessel which never empties. Feast for Hundred and Eight Gods 3 is in part influenced by Hindu temple rituals from its architectonic structure that references both the outer superstructure as well as the domestic shrine, all of which connote the mythical Mount Meru and the astrological significance of the auspicious number 108. Gupta employs these stainless steel implements as a kind of Duchampian style ready-made: piling them into the shape of temples, hanging them precariously from the ceiling and in the spirit of Claes Oldenburg, magnifying a vessel to mammoth proportions.