Important Notice

Sudarshan Shetty's body of work is animated by the twin themes of spectacle and disenchantment, idealism and actuality. The fact that these concepts are frequently at odds with each other, if not diametrically opposed, has rendered the artist’s output, whether painting, sculpture, photography or installation, particularly engaging. According to the artist, who admits to being deeply influenced by Baudelaire’s ‘Philosophy of Toys’, a spectacle or... Sudarshan Shetty's body of work is animated by the twin themes of spectacle and disenchantment, idealism and actuality. The fact that these concepts are frequently at odds with each other, if not diametrically opposed, has rendered the artist’s output, whether painting, sculpture, photography or installation, particularly engaging. According to the artist, who admits to being deeply influenced by Baudelaire’s ‘Philosophy of Toys’, a spectacle or amusement, while mesmeric, is empty of function. Yet, this state of emptiness performs an important function in itself: As functional repetition leads to the stagnation and exhaustion of meaning, spectacle and its related emptiness recreate and instill new layers of meaning.

Examining the tools Shetty uses in this unique regeneration of meaning, critic Anupa Mehta explains, “Disequilibrium and flux are among the mainstays of Sudarshan Shetty’s work. He uses juxtaposition, displacement and subversion as conscious strategies to upset accepted ways of seeing…Shetty’s preoccupation lies with the emotive content of objects, as well as with the changing emotional contexts that get created by shifts and through sheer dint of association. Increasingly, his is a poetics of loss” or emptiness (Anupa Mehta, “Unsteady Equilibrium”, India 20: Conversations with Contemporary Artists, Mapin Publishing, Ahmedabad, 2007, p. 188).

In the present lot, a photorealist rendering of a modern, sunlit living room, Shetty’s absurdist twinning of spectacle and emptiness is conspicuous in the transparent architectural forms that seem to float across the otherwise ordinary and uninhabited frame. These ‘invisible walls’ suggest perhaps the interstitial spaces that exist between reality and ideals, in which aspirations are nurtured, and ‘dreams’ become tangible.

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