Important Notice

In Subodh Gupta's series of paintings and installations focusing on travel, and particularly on the luggage that travelers carry, the artist draws on his personal experiences, and, by extension, on those of the great, ever-expanding Indian ‘middle class', to simultaneously comment on growth, vulnerability, migration and possession.

Like many other works from the series, the frozen action of present lot seems to take place at an... In Subodh Gupta's series of paintings and installations focusing on travel, and particularly on the luggage that travelers carry, the artist draws on his personal experiences, and, by extension, on those of the great, ever-expanding Indian ‘middle class', to simultaneously comment on growth, vulnerability, migration and possession.

Like many other works from the series, the frozen action of present lot seems to take place at an airport, a site where anticipation and vulnerability meet. "An interstitial point both in space and time, the airport signifies both exhilaration and anxiety, the tedious boredom that accompanies the most extreme physical dislocation…Gupta paints the markers of this transgression, the precious cargo that accompanies the passenger. The paintings themselves present a synthesis of schools…The people and backgrounds are rendered in a blocky, two-dimensional shorthand while only the objects of Gupta's ultimate interest, the trolleys with luggage, are fleshed out completely, painted in a realistic manner. As if to say we are nothing more than the commodities we drag around with us: ‘I Pack Therefore I Am.'" (Peter Nagy, "Transitory Indecisions and Fluctuating Monuments", Subodh Gupta, Nature Morte and Sakshi Gallery, 2005, p. 8, 9).

"Poised upon a wheeled trolley are suitcases and packages that represent a life condensed, the most necessary objects (both in terms of quotidian function and symbolic strengths) are swaddled into vinyl boxes or trussed into bulging bundles" (Ibid., p. 9). In the present lot, Gupta brings the luggage and trolley into sharp focus by using a dulled palette and texture to blur the rest of the surface.

Read More
Artist Profile
Other works of this artist in: this auction  |  entire site