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“The dot is like a universe… it’s so loaded and super- clichéd, it’s unbelievable. It’s also a homage of sorts. The form is very alluring.” - BHARTI KHER

Bharti Kher arrived at the bindi as her choice of material after meticulous consideration; her decision was swayed by the multiple meanings and allusions embodied by it. The bindi, a vital part of female ornamentation in India, represents the third eye and female... “The dot is like a universe… it’s so loaded and super- clichéd, it’s unbelievable. It’s also a homage of sorts. The form is very alluring.” - BHARTI KHER

Bharti Kher arrived at the bindi as her choice of material after meticulous consideration; her decision was swayed by the multiple meanings and allusions embodied by it. The bindi, a vital part of female ornamentation in India, represents the third eye and female fertility. It also shares its circular form with the bindu, an important symbol in Hindu metaphysics which stands for the seed from which all life arises. Kher, who encountered bindis in the markets of New Delhi, performs a playful subversion in her works by bringing classical Indian thought into association with the lowbrow mundanity of mass-produced products. Says writer Kanu Kartik Agrawal, “Kher’s use of pedestrian bindis is an intellectual and cultural inversion of the mythology of the modern Bindu. By repeating the bindi endlessly and using it in subversive ways to cover surfaces that range from rexine carpets and broken cups to fibreglass animals and hybrids, Kher punctures the transcendent symbolism of the hallowed Bindu.” (Kanu Kartik Agrawal, “The In-Between Worlds of Bharti Kher”, Bharti Kher, New Delhi: Nature Morte and Bengaluru: GallerySKE, 2006, p. 10)

A similar gleeful dismissal of the sacrosanct is discernible in the title of the present lot, Of Bloodlines and Bastards, which reflects the artist’s self-conception as an interloper who has made her way into the hierarchical art establishment of New Delhi. Referring to her husband, artist Subodh Gupta, and herself, she says, “Of course, there were heavy bloodlines in Delhi, but Subodh and I were these ‘bastard types’ who came from outside, and managed to claim a space for ourselves.” (Artist quoted in Somak Ghosal, “Profile | The eye of the ‘bindi’”, Mint, 18 January 2013, online) The title also refers to the cultural bastards created through migration. Kher clusters the bindis in a similar manner to topographical satellite views and data maps detailing area demographics. Art critic Ranjit Hoskote expounds on Kher’s use of bindis as a commentary on shifting identity in saying, “Kher transforms the gestures of what could have been a craft practice into richly allusive images: in ‘Of bloodlines and bastards’ (2007), she invokes the miscegenation that attends the crossing of borders and the merging of ancestries, the surging red flows of the work suggesting bloodstreams as well as the changing courses of rivers.” (Ranjit Hoskote, “The Pursuit of Extreme Propositions: Recent Works by Bharti Kher”, Bharti Kher, New York: Jack Shainman Gallery, 2007, pp. 16-17)

Kher extends the time-marking nature of the bindis, which are often sold in packets of seven for each day of the week, into her practice. The act of putting on bindis one by one takes on a metronome-like rhythm, with the work becoming as much about creation as timekeeping.

Her extensive body of work with the material and the laborious effort involved has evolved this mark making into a cultivated language. Attesting to the paramount importance of application to her works involving bindis and the language it has given birth to, the artist says, “I see them as action paintings that are about time. And by concentrating on them you could start to think that they (the bindis) are letters, and that I have conceived of a language. So those works become a text, like a morse code that I have created, and through them I can actually speak in tongue, I can speak in code, I can speak in secret. I can be both ambiguous and open.” (Artist quoted in Rajesh Punj, “Uncertain States: A Conversation with Bharti Kher”, Sculpture Magazine accessed via hauserwirth.com)

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