I first met Subodh Gupta some six years back in Bombay when his wife did an installation for a show my company was doing. He was helping her around, and was happy to just be around, as his wife was the center of attraction. Years later I heard Subodh in this year's Lit Fest. He was a very successful artist now, selling his pieces for croresu. And he came as someone with a charming rusticity and a cocky charm. And he grew a little indignant when some difficult questions were asked. But there was a raw honesty about him which I liked.
His solo show is on in NGMA ( with Amrita Sher-Gill in the hall across; such riches!), and I had a sliver in a day, and I knew I couldn't miss it.
And I am glad I went.
Installations are ever-so-often so symbolic that they become esoteric (for example Nalini Malani's show called 'You can't carry Acid in a Paper Bag' in Kiran Nadal Art Gallery, which showcases the artist's intelligence in such a way that the viewer starts wondering if he is a fool, and slinks away quietly). Subodh is on the other end of the spectrum. He is having fun. And he is in an intensely nostalgic mood. And he digs deep inside himself for memories of childhood, and of things which he loved and which have passed. Gimmicky? Oh yes. But in a good way. It involves you, but at the level of your curiosity and sense of humour. It doesn't superciliously challenge your IQ. It tickles your EQ. And for me the show was a winner for it.
Installations are a clarion call for discipline. An artist can go anywhere with these. The temptation to self-indulge and intellectualize is immense, what with the arsenal available - videos, sculpture, painting, any material in the world. But when an artist brings intelligence and sensitivity and humor into his work, ah, such tales can be told.
So you have him doing a wall installation of what a lovely messy kitchen looks like. Another one is a massive house made solely of cow dung (how did he eliminate the smell?!!), which he remembers from his childhood in Bihar when he used to help his mother make dung-cakes and use them when lighting a fire. Then there are the doodhwalas who get their motorcyle- charm registered. And do you remember the hold-all we used to carry in olden times' train journeys? The rolled up thing which our Dads opened up in the night and which had a pillow and a quilt, and in which we tucked ourselves in, as the train rolled on through the night? Yes, that makes an appearance. And the dabbawalas. And then there is a full series of memories of cinema as it used to be, shown in so many ways!! And then there is the lovely clever depth he gets inside a tall earthen jar, as you peep In through an orifice - and then there is a surprise inside.
And then the two massive massive structures he has created with pans and buckets and all kinds of things - one in the gardens of NGMA and the other outside the KNAC. The one in NGMA is called The Ray. And you know exactly what he wants you to have in your life, as a bucket pours all of it right on front of you, with the winter sun reflecting gorgeously right on your face, into your glad eyes.
Catch it.
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